The EU government has largely rejected new findings from the European Court of Auditors on its new lean method to spending, sparking an uproar because it plans broader reforms to the bloc’s 1.2 trillion euro funds.
The EU funds is more and more liable to duplicating funds because it strikes in direction of a system that rewards reforms moderately than reimbursing prices, the European Court of Auditors stated in a report printed on Monday.
It is the most recent broadside from the Luxembourg Court within the battle for the way forward for Brussels’ spending fund, which is value 1,200 billion euros over seven years and which will probably be reorganized beginning subsequent yr.
“Double financing is a misuse of European funds and a waste of European taxpayers’ cash. Yet, the safeguards in place are largely inadequate,” Annemie Turtelboom, who wrote the audit report, stated in a press release.
The Court of Auditors takes explicit intention on the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), a €648 billion stimulus plan for the Covid period which, in accordance with the Commission, reduces paperwork by returning higher powers to nationwide authorities.
But, Turtelboom informed reporters, “the objective of simplification was not achieved – a promise of simplification got here at the price of management,” with the sacrifice of monetary ensures.
At a convention final week, Court of Auditors President Tony Murphy lamented the dearth of traceability of restoration funds, the ultimate recipient of which is usually hidden from the general public.
This makes it tough, if not inconceivable, to test that there isn’t any duplication with different EU funding streams, equivalent to cohesion funds or funding used to put money into transport and vitality infrastructure, the Court says.
The downside additionally arises in “zero-cost” instances the place member states obtain EU funds in change for reforms that contain no expenditure, the Court stated.
The reference is to Malta, which acquired EU RRF funds after promising to undertake a technique on financial specialization which it might have already needed to do to entry analysis funding ten years in the past.
This spells hassle for the EU’s subsequent seven-year monetary framework, which – in accordance with leaked paperwork seen by Euronews – the Commission is planning to centralize right into a single fund, which is already producing controversy within the European Parliament.
Yet the Commission seems unaffected, rejecting a lot of the auditors’ findings and saying that it’s primarily as much as member states to determine and stop any duplication.
An EU government spokesperson stated it “disagrees” with the ECA’s view that there’s a higher threat of double funding with results-focused devices such because the RRF, and that calling for added checks on measures at zero price “will not be… according to the letter and spirit” of the laws underlying the RRF.
The Court “didn’t determine any particular instances of double financing” as a part of its audit pattern, the Commission spokesperson stated, though Turtelboom famous one instance cited in final yr’s annual report and that two different suspected instances got here to mild after the audit was finalized.
