Brussels, 26/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - Will the European Parliament give the European Commission a discharge at the April plenary session in Strasbourg on correct execution of Community funding for 2006? It's difficult to say at this stage. On Monday 25 February, the Commission found the going very tough when it came to convincing members of the parliamentary budgetary control committee on good governance of structural funds. Afterwards, the Court of Auditors revealed that at least 12% of this funding should not have been reimbursed in 2006. On 26 March the budgetary control committee will vote on the reports for the 2006 discharge.
The commissioner for regional policy, Danuta Hübner highlighted the fact that “we all share a common objective, to make sure that EU structural expenditure is controlled properly”.
She made four points: 1) “We do not contest the figure of 12% of the structural funds; which are the subject of the errors; 2) we know the type of errors causing the 12%. For Regional (ERDF) and Cohesion Funds, over a third of errors are linked to public procurement. We were already aware of this risk area, and, for example, in Greece, Portugal, and Spain we have applied, or are in the process of applying financial corrections. For the European Social Fund, over half the errors are linked to problems with the audit trail and overheads. We can also see where the errors are concentrated amongst the programmes and projects audited by the Court: Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Action is being taken to rectify this; 3) We must do more to prevent errors from happening. And we must act much more vigorously to recover and correct errors. Last week, the Commission adopted an Action Plan to achieve precisely these objectives (to improve Commission monitoring and co-management of structural funds EUROPE 9606). The Parliament and the Commission have been united in trying to convince member states to take greater responsibility for shared management. In short, we have received annual summaries from 25 member states. Austria and Germany have yet to send theirs.” This information involves payments and audits carried out in structural fund programmes (a letter was sent to these counties, which have a month to respond. If no answer is forthcoming within the given deadline, the Commission will launch infringement procedures against them.
Members of the budgetary control committee have noted the Commission's explanations but do not appear entirely convinced. The rapporteur on the 2006 discharge, Dan Jorgensen (PES, Denmark) is concerned by the scale of non-respect for Community directives on public procurement and calls for tender. Dirk Ahner, Director General at DG Regional Policy at the Commission, explained that the major problems existed during the implementation of projects and additional work that, unfortunately, did not respect rules for awarding public contracts. Jorgensen also asked for more of a dynamic approach from the Commission on recoveries of monies unduly spent. The rapporteur exclaimed: “We will never have explanations for this 12%” of erroneous payments mainly because of the impossibility of knowing what has been recovered in Cohesion Funds (member states are not obliged to provide information for cohesion funds).
Alexander Stubb (EPP-ED, Finland) said that the Commission's action plan on structural funds management did not really contain any new elements but admitted that “things are going in the right direction”. He affirmed that the EU might finally grant the Commission a discharge on the execution of the 2006 budget but on the following conditions: the Commission will have to provide a quarterly report on how the structural funds action plan is executed (Ms Hübner agreed); the Commission will have to provide a bi-annual report on recovery rates (which appears difficult to obtain from member states that are obliged to provide this information once and not twice a year). Ingeborg Grässle (CDU) criticised the “too extensive” shortcomings in structural funds and advised the Commission to give its action plan more credibility.
National declarations: outside of “acquis”
The EP is continuing to call on member states to adopt national declarations covering all Community funds that come under shared management. For the time being, only four countries have done or are doing so (Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom). Andrej Bajuk, the Slovenian minister for finance presented the Ecofin Council's (EUROPE 9600) recommendation for a Commission discharge. Mr Bajuk declared that the annual payments and audit summaries are part of the acquis and not national declarations. Rapporteur Dan Jorgensen criticised the Council for not taking the discharge procedures seriously. Siim Kallas, the commissioner for the fight against fraud said that the Commission “deserves” the discharge. Kallas said that the Court's most recent report (on the 2006 budget) contained the “best” declaration of assurance (DAS) ever. (L.C.)