The European Court of Auditors has given an overall positive assessment of the use and control of the financial instruments under shared management (FISM) in the cohesion policy framework over the period 2007-2013, in a report issued on Thursday 29 April.
“Publishing an audit report on a topic related to the 2007-2013 period today may appear outdated at first glance”, acknowledged Ladislav Balko, the member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report. The verification process takes a long time, sometimes more than 7 years, the Court says in its report. But, for Mr Balko, the conclusions of the report remain valid for the period 2014-2020.
Thus, according to the report, the verification of the eligibility of expenditure under the FISMs, amounting to approximately 16.4 billion euros (including 11.3 billion euros of co-financing from the ERDF and ESF), is sound.
According to the Court, the European Commission’s guidance was “timely” and the legal provisions on FISMs were “adequate”. The Court considers that, overall, the controls carried out by the audit authorities have “generally worked well”.
And for good reason: more than 80% of the operational programmes with FISMs were fully closed by the end of 2020 and the closure work could result in more than 270 million euros in corrections.
The Court’s auditor also notes that most of the shortcomings identified in the 2007-2013 period have been corrected for the 2014-2020 cycle.
However, the Court makes two main recommendations to the European Commission: - it should complement the current guidelines with new ones by the end of 2021 to facilitate the closure of the 2014-2020 period; - complete guidance on the roles and responsibilities of audit authorities by 2022.
For the full report: https://bit.ly/3e5WFfY (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)