At a fourth session of political discussions between the EU Council and the European Parliament on the new rules applicable to the EU budget (see EUROPE 13258/14), several points were reviewed and the first exchanges took place concerning the general provisions relating to internal control of budget implementation.
In particular, the co-legislators discussed points that had remained “open” at a technical level, namely conditionality and European values, the issue of negative income, transparency, very low-value subsidies and the definition of NGOs.
However, the meeting was brought to a swift conclusion, as the Council and Parliament simply reviewed these points as well as those finalised at the technical meetings held on 6 and 13 October, such as the specific provisions included in the crisis definition, the annual report on budget guarantees and the specific security conditions.
Certain points that are still being debated will be referred directly to the technical level, such as ‘global initiatives’ and the assistance of Member States in the notification and recovery of EU debts (see EUROPE 13258/14), or the structure for receiving assigned revenue and providing the corresponding appropriations, as well as borrowing and lending and diversified financing strategies.
The EDES (‘early-detection and exclusion system’) is still a divisive issue (see EUROPE 13258/14). Discussions are still at a standstill as to whether or not it should be extended to ‘shared management’. The Council does not want this extension, but could accept it on a voluntary basis, while the Parliament wants a binding application.
At this meeting, the co-legislators were able to initiate preliminary discussions on internal control of budget implementation, reviewing what can “be explored and is feasible” at a technical level.
According to a parliamentary source, the Council has a “certain lack of understanding” of Parliament’s position, which is in favour of a single, integrated and interoperable information and monitoring system providing access to data on the beneficiaries of EU funds, in particular for the prevention, detection, correction and monitoring of fraud, corruption, conflicts of interest, double-funding and other irregularities.
The Council believes that the new system will create an “additional burden” and will take time to set up, while Parliament is in favour of “building on an existing system” and transforming it over the next few years into an interoperable system, particularly for ‘data mining’, risk management and internal control applications.
Discussions will therefore have to continue once again at a technical level. The next round of negotiations at a political level is scheduled for 27 November. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)