Brussels, 11/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - European Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, has expressed his concern about the problems encountered by the European Commission in paying its bills on time. This follows his latest investigation into the timeliness of the Commission's payments to citizens, companies, universities, NGOs, and other organisations involved in EU-funded projects and contracts. In 2007, delays occurred in more than one out of five cases and the average delay amounted to 48 days.
The ombudsman commended the Commission for the measures already taken to reduce payment delays. He particularly welcomed the simplification of procedures and better internal monitoring. He also noted that, between 2005 and 2007, the Commission had managed to halve the percentage of late payments and applauded the decision to introduce automatic interest payments.
He called on the Commission to “make further improvements to its payment policy as quickly as possible”, especially regarding more vulnerable contractors, such as individual citizens and small- and medium-sized companies and organisations. The ombudsman also announced that he would carry out a new investigation in early 2009 when figures for the Commission's performance in 2008 become available. The investigation begun in December 2007 revealed that: - late payment continues to constitute a serious problem in the Commission; - in 2007, there were delays involving more than 22 % of all payments made by the Commission; - in 2007, the average delay amounted to 48 days; - late payments especially concerned smaller amounts for citizens or small and medium-sized companies or associations. (O.L./transl.rt)