On Tuesday 24 February, MEPs from the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets (BUDG), Committee on Regional Development (REGI) and Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) debated with members of the European Court of Auditors over their opinion on the proposal for a regulation establishing the European Fund for economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture and rural, fisheries and maritime, prosperity and security for 2028–2034 (see EUROPE 13815/13).
Discussions focused mainly on issues relating to the governance of national and regional plans, performance measurement and the administrative burden associated with the milestones and targets model. In particular, there was the question of how to ensure coherence, comparability and accountability in a model that merged several policies and was based on national plans with milestones and targets.
The co-rapporteur on the national and regional partnership plans and coordinator on the BUDG committee, Karlo Ressler (EPP, Croatian), questioned the coherence of a single fund merging policies “with different timetables” and distinct “implementation logic”.
He mentioned a risk of “competition between (...) measures within the same plan” and asked how to guarantee fair treatment when the European Commission assesses “contributions, targets and milestones” through national systems with different rationales.
On behalf of the Court of Auditors, Annemie Turtelboom acknowledged: “It’s not clear to us. It is unclear how the Commission will assess whether the various EU priorities are adequately covered in the NRP plans”.
She also noted the difficulty of comparing “27 Member States” without “objective criteria” or a standardised method.
Court of Auditors member Alejandro Blanco Fernández pointed out that “the important thing here (...) is the definition of milestones and targets” stressing that “there is no clear methodology” for comparing Member States.
The European Commission replied that a “reference framework” is included in the regulation and that “a single list of indicators“ will be used to identify the milestones. It specified that Member States will have to demonstrate that their “audit and control systems are effective”.
On the subject of simplification, Jean-Marc Germain (S&D, French) felt that the plans were “turning into an administrative nightmare”, referring to “greater simplicity for the Commission”, but “more complexity for everyone else”.
Alejandro Blanco Fernández confirmed that in addition to traditional budgetary controls, beneficiaries will have to justify their contribution to European indicators, creating “an additional layer that does not exist today”.
Annemie Turtelboom concluded that the model is “hybrid” and could lead to “simplification for the Commission, admittedly, but not for the Member States, nor (...) the final beneficiaries”, pointing out that “simplification must not replace accountability”. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)