The European Court of Auditors (ECA) examined, in its report published on Monday 21 November, the synergies between different programmes funding European research and innovation (R&I). The ECA studied the measures adopted by the competent European, national and regional authorities to promote synergies between different European programmes: the Horizon 2020 programme (2014-2020) followed by Horizon Europe (2021-2027) and the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIFs for 2014-2020).
These synergies consist of the combined use of funds available under different European programmes to maximise their impact for European R&I.
The two types of programmes differ in terms of priority, management, eligible beneficiaries and the way in which funds are allocated. Horizon 2020 is implemented centrally by the European Commission. Cohesion funds are implemented under shared management, their objectives and priorities are defined by the Member States.
Horizon 2020 and ESIFs combined accounted for 12% of the EU budget for 2014-2020. “They are pretty big in the European budget and important for the economic and social development of the EU”, emphasises Ivana Maletić, the member of the Court responsible for the audit.
Shortcomings in establishing synergies
In the Court’s view, insufficient attention has been paid to the factors that are important for establishing synergies. The ECA defines these factors as regulatory alignment, cooperation, data availability, expertise and capacity of stakeholders at national level.
The European Commission has introduced some regulatory measures to foster synergies for 2021-2027, but for the ECA it would be premature to assess their effectiveness.
Cooperation within the Commission has been improved, but cooperation between the Commission and the Member States and within the States is insufficient. The approaches remain too compartmentalised. Thus, there is little regular structured dialogue between stakeholders. The ESIF Managing Authorities and National Contact Points under Horizon 2020 have not come together to create synergies.
For the ECA, synergies must be considered at an early stage in strategic planning documents.
The ECA regrets the absence, up until March 2022, of a database containing all the projects financed by the ESIFs and the lack of interoperability between the databases. The Court recommends improving the use of data to promote synergies and monitoring. Existing tools can be used (such as CORTEX, the “community of practice Seal of Excellence”).
Finally, for the ECA, the expertise and management capacities of the authorities managing the funds in the States are still insufficient despite support from the Commission. The Commission could give them more support and, at national level, the competent authorities should work more with the final beneficiaries. Ms Maletić emphasised that it is mainly a question of the states making better use of existing resources. In addition, they can make use of the European support instruments mentioned in its June report (see EUROPE 12972/19).
Link to the ECA report: https://aeur.eu/f/45q (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)