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16.11.2013 Official
Journal
of
the
European
Union L
308/27
RESOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
of 17 April 2013
with observations forming an integral part of its Decisions on discharge in respect of the
implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2011, Section
III — Commission and executive agencies
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT,
— having regard to the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2011 ( 1 ),
— having regard to the consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for the financial year 2011
(COM(2012) 436 – C7-0224/2012) ( 2 ),
— having regard to the Commission’s report on the follow-up to the discharge for the 2010 financial year
(COM(2012) 585), and to the Commission staff working documents accompanying that report
(SWD(2012) 340 and SWD(2012) 330),
— having regard to the Commission communication of 6 June 2012 entitled ‘Synthesis of the Commis
sion’s management achievements in 2011’ (COM(2012) 281),
— having regard to the Commission’s annual report to the discharge authority on internal audits carried
out in 2011 (COM(2012) 563), and to the Commission staff working document accompanying that
report (SWD(2012) 283),
— having regard to the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors on the implementation of the budget
concerning the financial year 2011, together with the institutions’ replies ( 3 ) (Annual Report), and to the
Court of Auditors’ special reports,
— having regard to the statement of assurance ( 4 ) as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and
regularity of the underlying transactions provided by the Court of Auditors for the financial year 2011
pursuant to Article 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,
— having regard to the Council’s recommendation of 12 February 2013 on discharge to be given to the
Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2011 (05752/2013 –
C7-0038/2013),
— having regard to the Council’s recommendation of 12 February 2013 on discharge to be given to the
executive agencies in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2011
(05754/2013 – C7-0039/2013),
— having regard to Articles 317, 318 and 319 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
and Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty,
— having regard to Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial
Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities ( 5 ), and in particular Articles
55, 145, 146 and 147 thereof,
— having regard to Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council
of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union and repealing
Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 ( 6 ), and in particular Articles 62, 164, 165 and 166
thereof,
— having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 58/2003 of 19 December 2002 laying down the statute
for executive agencies to be entrusted with certain tasks in the management of Community
programmes ( 7 ), and in particular Article 14(2) and (3) thereof,
— having regard to Rule 76 of, and Annex VI to, its Rules of Procedure,
( 1 ) OJ L 68, 15.3.2011.
( 2 ) OJ C 348, 14.11.2012, p. 1.
( 3 ) OJ C 344, 12.11.2012, p. 1.
( 4 ) OJ C 348, 14.11.2012, p. 130.
( 5 ) OJ L 248, 16.9.2002, p. 1.
( 6 ) OJ L 298, 26.10.2012, p. 1.
( 7 ) OJ L 11, 16.1.2003, p. 1.

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L 308/28
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
16.11.2013
— having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the opinions of the other
committees concerned (A7-0116/2013),
A. whereas Europe is facing an economic and financial crisis in addition to a crisis of confidence in its
institutions, a situation which requires Parliament to be particularly rigorous when scrutinising the
accounts of the Commission,
B. whereas the Court of Auditors was, for the 18th time in a row, unable to grant a positive statement of
assurance regarding the legality and regularity of the payments,
C. whereas Member States are currently negotiating the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)
2014-2020,
D. whereas in a situation of limitation of resources, caused by the economic and financial crisis, considers
the need for the so-called ‘Intelligent solidarity’ - the use of Union funds to implement reforms, observe
financial discipline and ensure political and economic stability,
E. whereas, according to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Commission
bears the ultimate responsibility for the implementation of the Union budget, while Member States are
required to sincerely cooperate with the Commission to ensure that the appropriations are used in
accordance with the principles of sound financial management,
F. whereas
Article
287
TFEU
provides
that
‘[t]he
Court
of
Auditors
shall
provide
the
European
Parliament
and the Council with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and
regularity of the underlying transactions …’,
G. whereas performance audits measuring the extent to which spending has achieved the objectives
pursued become ever more important,
H. whereas the deficiencies in the customs system call for a better balance between reduced controls and
an increase in ex post controls,
I. whereas
the
Commission’s
management
should
be
presented
fairly
with
a
view
to
reinforcing
public
trust in the institutions,
J. whereas the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs is an overarching strategy covering the activities
of almost all the Commission services in charge of the internal policies, and whereas 2011 was the first
full year during which the strategy was implemented,
K. whereas the interinstitutional dialogue provided for in Article 318 TFEU should be the opportunity to
stimulate a new culture of performance inside the Commission,
L. whereas the Committee on Budgetary Control should be more closely involved in monitoring
Commission spending in future; looks forward to closer cooperation with the Court of Auditors in
order to produce wide-ranging proposals on improving efficiency in audit procedures,
M. whereas the powers and resources of the Committee on Budgetary Control in the discharge procedure
should be examined and set out in detail in an own-initiative report,
Priority actions for the Commission
1.
Calls on the Commission, with a view to granting of the discharge, to present to Parliament an action
plan for the achievement of the following priority actions:
Communication of the Commission on the protection of the Union budget
(a) The Commission should adopt annually, and for the first time in September 2013, a communi
cation to Parliament, the Council and the Court of Auditors with a view to making the impact of
its preventive and corrective actions as regards the protection of the Union budget public; notes
that it should, in particular, disclose in due time all suspensions, interruptions and retentions
which aimed to prevent errors and all the amounts (in nominal terms) recovered per Member
State, international organisation or third country in the course of the preceding year through
financial corrections and recoveries for all management modes at the level of the Union and
broken down by Member States; the Commission should demonstrate as far as possible that the
financial corrections adequately compensated for errors made, and that they contributed to
lasting improvements of the management and control systems;

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EN
16.11.2013 Official
Journal
of
the
European
Union L
308/29
(b) Financial corrections should be made by the Commission for the total amount of the Union’s
contribution of a programme if, due to errors or mismanagement of funds by national or
regional authorities, the programme fails largely to achieve its aims, even when a part of the
programme has been financed and funds have already been dispersed;
(c) The Commission should provide the relevant data covering all the policies managed by the
Commission in Note 6 ‘Financial corrections and recoveries’, attached to the accounts of the
Union;
(d) As regards the policies managed by multiannual programmes, the Commission should specify,
upon the closure of the programming period, the impact of the recoveries and financial
corrections made during that period on the error rate; notes, moreover, that the Commission
should demonstrate that the financial corrections adequately compensated for errors made, and
that they contributed to lasting improvements of the management and control systems;
(e) The Commission should shoulder greater responsibility for national audit authorities and for
control systems in those Member States in which most errors were detected; is of the opinion
that the Commission should draw up a proposal in how far the certification and work of audit
authorities in those Member States could be further improved; believes that the Commission
should publish its findings, and integrate them into the midterm-review of relevant regulations
and the MFF;
Error rate in shared management
Calls on the Commission to:
(f) harmonise the practice of its services concerning the interruption/suspension of payments when
significant deficiencies are detected at the level of the supervisory and control systems of Member
States;
(g) urge Member States to communicate to its services the draft eligibility rules in order to adapt
national eligibility rules which are not compatible with the relevant Union rules and to intensify
the controls on the declaration of costs and the effectiveness of the first-level checks;
(h) collect information from Member States concerning the degree to which national rules render
Union legislation on budget management terms unnecessarily complicated (‘gold-plating’) and
report to Parliament by October 2013; recalls that an infringement of those national rules
represents an error in budget management and that the Commission is ultimately responsible
for errors in implementing the Union budget (Article 317 TFEU); requests that this information is
sent to the national parliaments once a year and that Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary
Control is duly informed;
(i) support the management and control authorities of the Member States in identifying the systemic
sources of errors and in particular in ensuring compliant implementation of public procurement
rules and give guidance in the form of motivated opinions to those authorities in their simplifi
cation efforts; those opinions will be made public;
(j) apply the principle of proportionality, without underestimating the rules to reduce administrative
burdens and facilitate streamlining of procedures; notes that an additional step towards simplifi
cation is the obligatory use of the electronic project application and reporting, as well as the
unification and standardisation of documents and procedures for management and implemen
tation of the operational programmes;
(k) harmonise the criteria used by its services for making reservations in its annual activity report
and the different methodologies used to quantify public procurement errors in the two policy
areas of agriculture and cohesion policy;
(l) speed up the audit and financial correction procedures followed by its own services and in
particular, consider merging the different stages of the ‘contradictory’ procedure leading to a
financial correction;
(m) evaluate the progress made in the financial management under the policy groups of the budget of
the Union with a view to arriving at a positive statement of assurance and to report about this
evaluation by March 2014 in the context of the annual activity reports drafted by the Directors-
General and the Synthesis report on the Commission’s management achievements for 2013;

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L 308/30
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Official Journal of the European Union
16.11.2013
DG AGRI
(n) DG AGRI should align its practices for the interruption of payments with the best practices of
other directorates-general or services as well as put forward proposals for enhanced application
and use of suspensions in the policy area of agriculture and rural development;
(o) Taking into account the legal framework, DG AGRI should systematically interrupt and suspend
payments when the prime level controls reveal that they are materially affected by error; the
payments should be resumed only if sufficient appropriate evidence gathered on the spot proves
that the weaknesses have been remedied;
(p) The Commission should report by the end of June 2013 on the progress made by the working
group set up by DG AGRI to assess the root causes of Rural Development errors and develop
corrective action for the current and future programming periods; that report should be sent to
the Member States, national parliaments and Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural
Development so that they can analyse the causes of errors, deliver non-binding opinions and
submit proposals for countering those errors;
(q) DG AGRI should take all necessary measures to support the Member States’ efforts to eliminate
from their programmes those conditions that are intrinsically prone to creating implementation
and control difficulties;
DG REGIO
(r) The Commission should maintain its original proposals for the general provisions of the 2014-
2020 programming period in cohesion policy and should insist, vis-à-vis the Member States, on
the absolute need to introduce in the new legislation the principles of net financial corrections ( 1 )
as well as streamlined procedures and conditions under which payments can be interrupted or
suspended;
(s) The Commission should also use, as far as possible, net financial corrections to correct serious
errors in the current programming period pursuant to Article 99 et seq. of Council Regulation
(EC) No 1083/2006 ( 2 ); in particular net financial corrections should be applied at the closure of
the programming period;
(t) In addition, the Commission should defend its initial position not to allow the secondary
selection of projects physically completed or fully implemented before the funding application
(so-called ‘retrospective projects’) for the funding period 2014-2020 ( 3 );
(u) DG REGIO should fully align its payment practices with the best practices of other directorates-
general or services, and continue making direct and full use of the legal instruments provided for
by the regulations, especially the interruption of payments or whenever necessary by the
suspension of operational programmes;
(v) Calls for more stringent monitoring and conditions in the case of Member States which mani
festly breach Union provisions on budgetary and competition law (particularly with regard to the
award of public contracts); calls for systematic suspension of payments for the relevant Structural
Fund programmes where Union law is breached until rules are complied with, so that use of the
funds in accordance with Union rules is guaranteed;
( 1 ) Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down common provisions on the
European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund, the European Agricultural Fund
for Rural Development and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund covered by the Common Strategic Framework
and laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the
Cohesion Fund and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 (COM(2011) 615/2), Article 136 et seq.
( 2 ) Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 of 11 July 2006 laying down general provisions on the European Devel
opment Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 (OJ
L 210, 31.7.2006, p. 25).
( 3 ) COM(2011) 615/2, Article 55(4).

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16.11.2013 Official
Journal
of
the
European
Union L
308/31
(w) Calls for a tougher suspension policy for the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and
Cohesion Fund (CF), like that already successfully applied to European Social Fund payments, thus
enabling early action to prevent any improper use of Structural Fund monies and underpinning,
from the outset, the zero-tolerance approach by the Commission;
(x) In particular, DG REGIO should systematically interrupt the payments and suspend the
programmes when the prime level controls reveal that they are materially affected by error;
the payments should be resumed only if there is sufficient and reliable evidence that weaknesses
have been remedied;
Error rate in centralised management
DG Research
(y) By the end of June 2013, the Commission should present a report to Parliament assessing the
impact of the simplification measures introduced in 2011;
(z) That report should also assess the improvements announced by the Commission in respect of the
ex ante control and the ex post audit strategies and of the improvement in the guidance on the
most common errors given to participants in the seventh framework research programme and to
auditors;
(aa) In that report, the Commission should explain whether the measures taken to reduce the audit
burden, generated by the fact that seven Authorising Officers by Delegation are responsible for
the Research budget, have been effective and, if not, propose other solutions;
Evaluation report (Article 318 TFEU) and enhanced use of performance audits
(ab) The Commission services should develop a new culture of performance, defining in their
management plan a number of targets and indicators meeting the requirements of the Court
of Auditors in terms of relevance, comparability and reliability; furthermore performance indi
cators and targets should be fully integrated in all proposals for new policies and programmes;
(ac) Asks the Commission to take full account of the remarks and requests formulated in the
‘Response of the European Court of Auditors to the Commission’s second Article 318 evaluation
report’;
(ad) Calls on the Commission, until the midterm review in the various areas of policy and
programmes, to propose a clear definition of European added value; calls for a review of the
programmes with the aim of avoiding national and regional displacement effects and genuinely
only financing measures which could not be carried out without impetus from the Union;
(ae) In their annual activity reports, the services should measure their performance in summarising the
results achieved when contributing to the main policies pursued by the Commission; this ‘depart
mental’ performance will be complemented by a global evaluation of the performance of the
Commission in the evaluation report provided for by Article 318 TFEU;
(af) The Commission should modify the structure of the abovementioned evaluation report, distin
guishing the internal policies from the external ones and focussing, within the section relating to
internal policies, on the Europe 2020 strategy as being the economic and social policy of the
Union; the Commission should place the emphasis on the progress made in the achievement of
the flagship initiatives;
(ag) Expects that in the framework of a new and enhanced policy on performance, all evaluation
reports done or paid for by the Commission will be made available in full to Parliament, which
may decide to make them available on its website for consultation;
Revenues and traditional own resources
In order to ensure proper protection of the Union’s financial interests, and with a view to equipping
the Union with sufficient own resources for growth, the Commission should:

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L 308/32
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Official Journal of the European Union
16.11.2013
(ah) provide Parliament, in time for the 2012 discharge procedure with an evaluation of the cost of
postponing the full application of the Modernised Customs Code (MCC), which would quantify
the budgetary consequences of such postponement;
(ai) collect reliable data on the customs and VAT gap in the Member States and report every six
months to Parliament in this regard;
(aj) identify and implement actions which would increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the
collection of customs duties and VAT in the Member States; the Commission and the Member
States should implement the Court of Auditors’ recommendation in the Special Report
No 13/2011 ( 1 );
(ak) identify the channels and schemes allowing for tax evasion and tax avoidance, in particular by
multinationals and through post box companies, and promote appropriate countermeasures;
welcomes in this context the OECD report on tax base erosion and profit shifting and calls
on the Commission to cooperate with the OECD who will establish an action plan on how to
address this problem by July 2013;
(al) raise the Member States’ and public awareness, in the context of the negotiations on the Multi
annual Financial Framework, that effective revenue collection remains an essential feature of
sound management of public finances, including the fact that uncollected revenue aspects have
an impact on the availability of the Union’s own resources, the economic situation of the
Member States and the internal market and commission a study which would calculate the
potential financial benefits for the Member States in tax revenue terms if an equal level
playing field against tax evasion and tax avoidance throughout the Union should be created;
2. Is alarmed by the magnitude of offshore financial activities, as revealed in the recent offshore leaks;
calls on the Commission to take urgent measures to eliminate these possibilities of diverting
thousands of billions of euro away from the normal financial circuit in order primarily to avoid
tax and to hide illegal funds from the tax authorities in the Member States;
3. Strongly suggests that the Commission should take measures to ensure that all banking activities
related to advising on, and setting up, offshore structures are made illegal and that no bank within the
European Union involved in such activities will or can receive European funding under any scheme or
benefit from national support measures;
4. Expects to receive, within two months, draft legislative proposals from the Commission to end the
practice of the use of tax havens by individuals, companies and even public institutions;
Follow-up to the 2010 discharge resolution ( 2 )
Monitoring of financial engineering instruments
5. Welcomes
the
follow-up
given
by
the
Commission
to
Parliament’s
request
for
greater
transparency
as
regards the Financial Engineering Instruments (FEIs), in particular by making the reporting by Member
States on financial and implementation issues in the relevant legislation a compulsory procedure ( 3 ),
and notes that the Summary report on the progress made in financing and implementing FEIs
announced by the Commission in its report on the follow-up to the discharge for the 2010
financial year (COM(2012) 585) was transmitted in due time to Parliament; further notes that the
latter provides data on the description of the FEIs and their implementation arrangements, identifi
cation of the implementing entities and amounts of assistance paid to and by the FEIs;
( 1 ) Special Report No 13/2011 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Does the control of customs procedure 42 prevent and
detect VAT evasion?’
( 2 ) Resolution of the European Parliament of 10 May 2012 with observations forming an integral part of its Decision on
discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2010,
Section III — Commission and executive agencies (OJ L 286, 17.10.2012, p. 31).
( 3 ) Revision of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006, Commission Regulation (EC) No 1974/2006 as to rural devel
opment; see also Commission proposal COM(2011) 615/2 concerning Common provisions of the structural
instruments for 2014-2020.

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16.11.2013 Official
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Union L
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6. Notes
that
the
amount
of
structural
funds
implemented
through
FEIs
has
continued
to
increase
over
the period 2007-2013, in particular for instruments targeting enterprises; points out that more than
90 % of the amounts actually disbursed to final recipients went to enterprises; asks the Commission to
clarify what percentage of the amounts actually dispersed went to truly private enterprises, as opposed
to majority publicly owned enterprises;
7.
Notes with concern that FEIs for urban development and energy efficiency/renewable energies account
for only 17 % of the amount paid to all FEIs at the end of 2011 and, moreover, that the flow into
concrete urban projects remained slow;
8.
Endorses the lessons learned by the Commission pursuant to the abovementioned summary report as
to the Member States’ reporting, as follows:
— the process of the collection of data by managing authorities and their transmission to the
Commission should start as early as possible,
— Member States should be encouraged to provide input covering more than just the amounts
committed to the funds and the number and type of final recipients,
— the Commission should provide more guidance to the Member States;
9. Notes
that
the
Commission
has
charged
a
group
of
experts
( 1 ) to draft a report on the use of the ERDF
in support of FEIs; considers this to be a first step and is worried that the expert evaluation network’s
analysis reveals a number of serious problems, for example, the lack of evidence to determine whether
the scale of support matches the size of the gaps in the market for loans and equity finance; the lack
of evidence from which to assess whether the size of venture capital funds set up with ERDF support
is large enough to be viable; the paucity of data on the costs of setting up and operating FEIs relative
to non-repayable grants; and the complexity of the regulations and uncertainty surrounding their
interpretation;
10. Calls on the Commission to take concrete steps to significantly improve the use of the FEIs with a
view to better protecting the Union’s financial interests;
11. Reiterates that Parliament invited the Commission to evaluate objectively and critically the experiences
with FEIs in the Cohesion policy for the programming period 2007-2013, to provide a risk
assessment considering different FEIs separately, as well as taking into account the risk structure of
beneficiaries of the FEIs, and to report annually to Parliament, in time for the respective discharge
procedure, on the use of FEIs in Member States, including comparable indicators on the effectiveness,
efficiency and economy of FEIs, and also on how the Commission coordinates, ensures consistency
and mitigates the risk of overlapping across the policy areas;
Accountability chain/cascade
12. Regrets that the Commission constantly ignores Parliament’s long standing request to add the
responsible Commissioner’s signature to the annual activity reports of his/her related Directorate-
General; notes, however, that the Synthesis report is adopted by the College of Commissioners and
contains a specific statement emphasising the Commission’s final responsibility for the management of
its authorising officers on the basis of assurances and reservations made by them in their annual
activity reports; is therefore of the opinion that the College, when adopting the Synthesis report, took
note of the problems in the respective directorates-general and can be held responsible;
13. Calls on the Commission to further improve the quality and comparability of the annual activity
reports;
( 1 ) See the synthesis report made by Terry Ward and Applica sprl on the Use of the ERDF to support financial engin
eering instruments with the contribution of the expert evaluation network delivering policy analysis on the
performance of Cohesion policy 2007-2013.

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L 308/34
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Official Journal of the European Union
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14. Welcomes the fact that the Commission has given Parliament access to Member States’ annual
summaries; deplores the fact, however, that only 17 Member States gave the Commission permission
to do so; asks the Commission to communicate which steps and measures it will take to ensure that
the remaining 10 Member States will also grant their permission;
The use of pre-financing
15. Welcomes
the
new
rules
introduced
in
Financial
Regulation
(EU,
Euratom)
No
966/2012 about
the
regular clearing of pre-financing and encourages the Commission to continue its efforts to follow the
recommendations of the Court of Auditors as regards the relevant accounting data and methods;
The imposition of effective sanctions in the big spending areas
16. Recognises that the Commission’s proposals for the 2014-2020 programming period largely met
Parliament’s concerns expressed in its resolution accompanying the discharge decision for the
budget execution in 2008 ( 1 ), with the proposed introduction of net financial corrections to
Member States as well as streamlined procedures and conditions under which payments can be
interrupted or suspended; notes that those proposals also clarify certain eligibility rules and clearly
prohibit the possibility for managing authorities to select projects physically completed or fully
implemented before the funding application (so-called ‘retrospective projects’);
17. Calls on the Commission to investigate the possibilities of setting up a correctional system for error
prone spending areas, in which the total material value of errors in year n will be partially or entirely
deducted from the yearly reimbursement requests made by accrediting organisations depending on the
severity of the irregularities;
The audit work of the Court of Auditors
18. Recalls
that
Article
287
TFEU
provides:
‘The
Court
of
Auditors
shall
provide
the
European
Parliament
and the Council with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and
regularity of the underlying transactions (…)’;
19. Points out that in addition to delivering one opinion on the reliability of the accounts, the Court of
Auditors delivers three on the legality and regularity of the underlying operations; takes the view that
this plethora of opinions makes it more difficult for Members of the European Parliament to assess the
Commission’s implementation of the budget;
20. Points out that the Court of Auditors establishes, on the basis of its audits, the most likely error rate,
which in 2011 stood at 3,9 % for payments; points out that on the basis of international auditing
standards, the Court of Auditors takes 2 % as the materiality threshold as regards the generally
acceptable rate of errors and that, if the most likely error rate is above this threshold, the Court of
Auditors will give an adverse opinion;
21. Points out that in accordance with international audit standards, the external auditor should set the
materiality threshold for errors independently;
22. Emphasises
that
a
distinction
must
be
drawn
between
errors
and
fraud
and
considers
that
in
the
vast
majority of cases, errors stem from administrative mistakes, many of which are linked to the
complexity of the Union and national rules, which can be corrected; reminds the Commission,
however, that the current error rate is still unacceptably high and that Parliament has a zero-
tolerance approach to errors;
23. Highlights
the
fact
that
an
error
rate
as
such
does
not
give
a
comprehensive
view
of
the
effectiveness
of Union policies; is of the opinion, therefore, that compliance audits should be supplemented by
performance audits evaluating the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of Union policy instruments;
points to the fact that the U.S. Government Accountability Office concentrates more on performance
than on compliance audits;
( 1 ) Resolution of the European Parliament of 5 May 2010 with observations forming an integral part of its Decisions on
discharge in respect of the implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2008, Section
III – Commission and executive agencies (OJ L 252, 25.9.2010, p. 39).

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European
Union L
308/35
24. Observes that there are some differences of views between the Court of Auditors and the Commission
with regard to the way in which errors should be calculated, in particular as to whether pre-financing
should be included or excluded, as to the handling of quantifiable and non-quantifiable errors and as
to the way in which recoveries and financial corrections should be considered in the overall
assessment of the financial impact of errors and the corrective capacity of systems; is of the
opinion that the different approaches mirror the different roles respectively played by the institutions,
namely the role of auditor on the one hand and manager on the other; requests that the Court of
Auditors consider the possibility of separating these contested different categories of error rates in its
next annual report and to qualify the recovery and financial corrections policies/results per sector;
25. Understands
that
in
the
course
of
time,
expertise
and
methodology
can
change;
insists,
however,
that
audit results need to remain comparable in order to enable Parliament to make a political assessment
over a longer period of time;
26. Calls,
therefore,
for
closer
cooperation
between
national
audit
institutions
and
the
European
Court
of
Auditors in connection with the auditing of shared-management arrangements, pursuant to
Article 287(3) TFEU;
27. Proposes that consideration should be given to having the national audit institutions deliver, in a
capacity as independent external auditors and in accordance with international audit standards,
national audit certificates in respect of the management of Union funds; these certificates would be
submitted to the Member State governments with a view to their being produced as part of the
discharge process, on the basis of an appropriate interinstitutional procedure to be established;
The Court of Auditors’ statement of assurance
Accounts – clean opinion
28. Welcomes the fact that the annual accounts of the Union for the financial year 2011 present fairly,
and in all material respects, the position of the Union as at 31 December 2011, and the results of its
operations and its cash flows for the then completed year;
Legality and regularity of revenue – clean opinion
29. Notes
with
satisfaction
that
revenue
underlying
the
accounts
for
the
year
ended
31
December
2011
is
legal and regular in all material respects;
Legality and regularity of commitments – clean opinion
30. Notes with satisfaction that commitments underlying the accounts for the year ended 31 December
2011 are legal and regular in all material respects;
Legality and regularity of payments – adverse opinion
31. Deeply
regrets
that
payments
remain
materially
affected
by
error;
32. Understands that the basis for the adverse opinion of the Court of Auditors is the observation that the
supervisory and control systems are only partially effective and that, as a result, payments are affected
by a most likely error rate of 3,9 %;
33. Notes
with
concern
that
the
policy
groups
agriculture;
market
and
direct
support;
rural
development,
environment, fisheries and health; regional policy, energy and transport; employment and social
affairs, as well as research and other internal policies, are materially affected by error;
34. Recalls that the most likely error rate for payments in the financial year 2010 was estimated at 3,7 %
and in the financial year 2009 at 3,3 %; is dismayed about this increase because it reverses the positive
trend observed in the years 2007, 2008 and 2009; calls on the Commission, therefore, to take the
necessary steps to achieve a trend that shows a consistent decrease in the error rate; emphasises that
Parliament is of the opinion that [r]eaching this target is an essential part of getting full value for EU
expenditure in the future and progressing towards a positive DAS’ ( 1 );
( 1 ) Paragraph 4 of Parliament’s abovementioned Resolution of 5 May 2010.

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L 308/36
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
16.11.2013
35. Attributes this development mainly to the increase of the most likely error rate in the area of
agriculture, and is concerned in particular about the high level of error in the rural development
where the most likely error rate reported was 7,7 %;
36. Calls on the Court of Auditors to adapt its special reports on specific fields of policy more than
previously to facilitating comparisons with past periods;
Council recommendation
37. Regrets that the Council continues to refuse to cooperate with Parliament with regards to the Council
discharge; believes that this leaves the Committee on Budgetary Control with very few instruments and
that eventually, the Committee is forced to introduce its questions and requests for information about
the budget of the Council to the Commission;
38. Notes that the Council recommends to give discharge to the Commission in respect of the imple
mentation of the general budget of the Union for the financial year 2011; notes that the Netherlands,
Sweden and the United Kingdom have voted against granting discharge to the Commission for the
execution of the Union’s budget for the financial year 2011; takes notice of these countries’ obser
vations:
— for the 18th consecutive time, the Court of Auditors was unable to grant a positive unqualified
statement of assurance,
— emphasising the fact that the credibility of Union spending depends on sound financial
management at all levels, orderly accounting and transparent accountability of all relevant actors,
— pointing out that 80 % of the Union budget is spent under the system of shared management by
Member States,
— regretting that only four out of seven Member States’ audit authorities, assessed by the Court of
Auditors, were considered effective,
— calling on all Member States to provide full, transparent and accurate data as part of their annual
summaries,
— encouraging the Commission to continue driving better financial management by all Member
States, including strict application of sanctions such as suspensions and interruptions;
39. Notes in this context the high number of the Commission’s reservations concerning the ERDF/CF
management and control systems for the period 2007-2013 amongst others in the Netherlands and
the United Kingdom; encourages the Council to draw conclusions from the observations by the
Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom by conducting a peer review of each of the Member
States’ financial management and quality of performance;
Horizontal issues
Responsibilities of the Commission and the Member States in shared management
40. Emphasises that in accordance with Article 317 TFEU, the Commission is ultimately responsible for
the implementation of the Union’s budget; points out that where the Commission implements the
budget under shared management, implementation tasks are delegated to Member States pursuant to
Article 53b of the Financial Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002;

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EN
16.11.2013 Official
Journal
of
the
European
Union L
308/37
41. Stresses that in this respect, the responsibility of the Directors-General is a cornerstone of the
Commission’s present system for managing Union funds and emphasises the importance of fairly
representing the management performances in their annual activity report;
42. Recalls
Parliament’s
proposal,
contained
in
its
2010
discharge
resolution,
for
a
full-time
Commissioner
for Budgetary Control in the 2014-2019 Commission;
43. Expects that Member States are fully aware of their obligations, pursuant to Article 4(3) of the Treaty
on European Union and pursuant to the principle of sincere cooperation, to assist in an active and
effective way the Union in carrying out tasks which flow from the Treaties;
44. Insists in this context on the importance of Article 53b of the Financial Regulation (EC, Euratom)
No 1605/2002, which provides that, when implementing the budget, the Member States are to take
all necessary measures, including legislative, regulatory and administrative measures, to protect the
Union’s financial interests; stresses in this respect that Article 59(2) of the new Financial Regulation
(EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 even specifies that these measures should include the following:(a)
ensuring that actions financed from the budget are implemented correctly and effectively and in
accordance with the applicable sector-specific rules for that purpose and (b) preventing, detecting
and correcting irregularities and fraud;
45. Notes that the current system does not ensure a full transparency of the beneficiaries of ERDF/CF
support; in the current framework, the Commission provides a portal with access to lists of bene
ficiaries available on national websites, which are only in the respective national language and without
following common criteria; expects the future regulation covering the structural instruments to ensure
that Member States provide the data on the final beneficiaries of ERDF/CF funds to be published on
the Commission’s official website in one of the three working languages of the Union and based on a
set of common criteria to allow comparison and detection of errors;
46. Points to the existence of significant differences in Member States’ administrative performance in the
field of revenue and expenditure in shared management, especially related to detecting irregularities,
fraud and errors and financial follow-up in both the customs field and spending of Union funds; notes
that the Commission so far monitors administrative performance in a reactive way and on case level
and thus, does not perform sufficient trend analysis to identify fields of risk; calls on the Commission
to apply the method of trend analysis to identify financial risks and to take measures to improve
Member States’ administrative performance;
47. Welcomes the fact that, in accordance with Article 59(3), (4) and (5) of the new Financial Regulation
(EU, Euratom) No 966/2012, Member States management authorities are in future to be required
annually to provide the Commission with their accounts accompanied by a management declaration,
an annual summary of their final audit report and of controls and an opinion from an independent
audit body;
48. Is convinced that the above mentioned declarations, in combination with the introduction of self-
critical deliberation in the Council, which is lacking until now, and an even-handed and honest and
open peer review among Member States would result in better and more effective budget execution,
increase the performance of policies, programmes and projects and which will help to reinforce the
solidarity between Member-States and replace mutual distrust, a result which is preferable to budget
cuts to the detriment of economic recovery and the trust of the Union citizens in a common Europe;

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L 308/38
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
16.11.2013
49. Welcomes the fact that Member States may, at the appropriate level, publish the above information,
and – in addition – provide declarations signed at an appropriate level based on that information; calls
on the Commission to assist the Member States in providing those voluntary management declar
ations as referred to in Article 59(5) of the new Financial Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 by
promoting best practices; insists that Parliament should receive both the management declarations and
the voluntary declarations;
50. Notes that the Commission should give guidance to Member States to draft meaningful annual
summaries; notes that for this purpose, information given on operational programmes under
shared management should be standardised as regards form and content; annual summaries should
be put at the disposal of Parliament and should not only be made available in the language of the
Member State, thus increasing transparency and accountability;
51. Notes, however, that neither the Court of Auditors nor the Commission considers the annual
summaries to be a valuable source of information at this stage for the purposes of assessing
compliance by, or the performance of, beneficiaries; reiterates its request that the Commission
should analyse the strengths and weaknesses of national control systems on the basis of the
annual summaries received; considers that this situation is unacceptable and demands that the
Commission take immediate action to ensure that the next annual summaries are useful for
assessing the performance of beneficiaries;
52. Points out that the annual summaries provided by the Member States ‘in [their] current form [have]
been seen to provide little added value’ and that ‘the compliance elements of the current annual
summary simply duplicate information readily available from other sources’ ( 1 ); urges, therefore, all
Member States to increase the usefulness of their annual summaries by including an overall analysis of
the results and an overall level of assurance statement to demonstrate their commitment to the sound
financial management of Union funds and transparency; urges Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland,
Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland and Spain in particular to follow
without delay the example of the 15 Member States that have included an ‘overall level of assurance
statement’ in their annual summaries for structural actions in the European Social Fund (ESF) and the
ERDF ( 2 ) in order for the Committee on Budgetary Control to benefit from this information during the
2012 discharge procedure; expects that those Member-States who will not submit such a statement in
time will submit a comprehensive statement explaining the reasons why;
53. Calls on the Member States to issue national management declarations at the appropriate political
level and asks the Commission to establish a template for such a declaration;
54. Calls on the Commission to establish in the short term, in cooperation with Member States, a model
for national management declarations which will make them meaningful and comparable; calls on the
Commission to openly provide its opinion on those declarations; takes the view that such declarations
should, inter alia, certify criteria (such as true and fair accounts, the effectiveness of management and
control systems and the legality and regularity of underlying transactions) and specify the scope of
assurance reservations and disclaimers; asks the Commission to present proposals for decreasing the
burden of controls for those Member States or regions that perform consistently well, according to the
annual reports of the Court of Auditors and to their own national management declarations; is of the
opinion that the Court of Auditors and the Commission should be able to take account of the
substance of national management declarations in their audit work;
55. Notes the details set out on the following scoreboard regarding the two initiatives relating to the
contributions of Member States in improving the effectiveness of shared management:
( 1 ) See the reply given by Commissioner Andor to the written question 18 in preparation of the hearing in the
Committee on Budgetary Control on 26 November 2012 together with the 2011 Annual Activity Report —
Directorate-General Regional Policy, page 84.
( 2 ) See the Commission’s Synthesis report, point 3.3, in footnote 9 on page 11 of COM(2012) 281.

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EN
16.11.2013 Official
Journal
of
the
European
Union L
308/39
Scoreboard
‘Overall level of assurance statement’ in
National management Declarations
the Annual Summaries for structural
actions
Austria No No
Belgium No No
Bulgaria No Yes
Cyprus No Yes
Czech Republic No Yes
Denmark Yes Yes
Estonia No Yes
Finland No Yes
France No Yes
Germany No No
Greece No Yes
Hungary No Yes
Ireland No No
Italy No No
Latvia No No
Lithuania No No
Luxembourg No No
Malta No No
Netherlands Yes No
Poland No No
Portugal No Yes
Romania No Yes
Slovakia No Yes
Slovenia No Yes
Spain No No
Sweden Yes Yes
United Kingdom Yes Yes
Reliability of Commission management representations
56. Notes that the total number of reservations included by the Directors-General of the Commission in
their annual activity reports increased to 27 in 2011 from 17 in 2010 and that the estimated total
financial impact of reservations increased to EUR 1 959 million or 1,5 % of the payments made in
2011 (2010: EUR 423 million, corresponding to 0,3 %);

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L 308/40
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
16.11.2013
57. Is concerned that those developments reflect a high risk of errors in some areas, such as rural
development, cohesion or the seventh framework programme as recognised by the Directors-
General of the Commission, and corroborated by the audit results of the Court of Auditors;
58. Takes note of the guidance given by the Secretary-General of the Commission and the Director-
General of DG Budget to the Directors-General and heads of services of the Commission on how to
calculate the residual error rate, which led to an improvement in some annual activity reports as
pointed out by the Court of Auditors;
59. Regrets, nevertheless, that the Court of Auditors found weaknesses in those instructions and their
implementation, in particular as regards the residual error rate; urges the Commission, as a result of
this, to adapt its guidance as an immediate priority;
60. Recognises the progress made by the Commission in determining the extent to which transactions
remain affected by error, but notes with disappointment that the Court of Auditors concluded that the
residual error rate is not yet a reliable indicator;
61. Encourages
the
Commission
to
make
progress
in
disclosing
more
precise
and
reliable
data
concerning
recoveries and financial corrections and to present information reconciling as far as possible the year
in which payment is made, the year in which the related error is detected and the year in which
recoveries or financial corrections are disclosed in the notes to the accounts ( 1 );
62. Welcomes the report by the Commission on financial corrections, including the amount actually
recovered which was returned to the budget at closure 2000-2006 in regional policy which shows
the impact of the financial corrections made during the programming period and at closure on the
overall error rate of the 2000-2006 programming period;
63. Calls on the Commission to extend this practice of reporting to the other policies managed by
multiannual programmes;
64. Recommends, in accordance with the view expressed by the Court of Auditors, that a clear link be
established between amounts included in annual activity reports, in particular for establishing the
residual error rate, and information on recoveries/financial corrections presented in the accounts;
65. Notes that the Commission is able to provide an overview of the corrections of errors and irregu
larities made in 2011, in particular in that part of the budget that is implemented under the shared
management mode ( 2 );
66. Suggests to the Commission that it should request its Directors-General to systematically gather those
data and publish them in their annual activity reports;
67. Calls
on the
Commission to
issue
in
time
for
the
respective
discharge
procedure
annual
communi
cations to Parliament, the Council and the Court of Auditors listing, by country and programme,
financial corrections and recoveries collected, in order to demonstrate its performance in the
protection of the Union’s budget; calls on the Commission, on this basis, to draw up a performance
ranking;
( 1 ) See the Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, Annex 1.2, point 2.
( 2 ) See Note 6 in the consolidated annual accounts of the European Union 2011.

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EN
16.11.2013 Official
Journal
of
the
European
Union L
308/41
68. Notes with concern that the abovementioned Note 6 attached to the consolidated accounts covers
only financial corrections and recoveries performed at Union level, and that information on with
drawals, recoveries and pending recoveries of structural funds made by the Member States is not
disclosed for reliability reasons ‘since doubts remain as to the quality and completeness of data
submitted by some Member States and/or for some programmes’; calls on the Commission to
make annually public in a communication all the amounts corrected the preceding year through
financial corrections and recoveries for all management modes at the level of the Union and by
the Member States;
69. Is worried that the Commission itself confirms in the said Note 6 the assessment made by the Court
of Auditors on the lack of reliability of supervisory and control systems of the Member States, and
deeply regrets that this could affect the reliability of Commission management representations; calls
on the Commission to ensure that data communicated by Member States are complete and fully
reliable;
70. Recalls in this context that, by adopting the Synthesis report on the basis of the assurances and
reservations made by its Directors-General and heads of services in their annual activity reports, the
Commission takes overall political responsibility for management of the Union budget ( 1 );
71. Welcomes the improvements brought to the overall opinion issued by the Commission’s Internal
Auditor, which also underpin the Synthesis report, but notes that the positive opinion given by the
Internal Auditor is based in particular on the assurance given in the annual activity reports by senior
management of the Commission;
72. Consequently, reiterates its previous demand that the Commission establish reliable and objective
annual activity reports;
Responsibility of Member States
73. Notes that the two policy areas prone to the highest error rates (rural development, environment,
fisheries and health as well as regional policy, energy and transport) are mainly implemented under
shared management, and regrets that the estimated most likely error rates amount to 7,7 % and 6 %
respectively;
74. Emphasises that the President of the Court of Auditors observed that ‘national authorities operate the
first – and most important – line of defence in protecting the financial interests of EU citizens and
that there needs to be a greater degree of commitment on the part of national authorities to the
management and control of EU money’ ( 2 ); underlines in this context the co-responsibility of the
Member States for better spending; considers, in addition, that the active involvement of the national
parliaments, through respective committees for oversight the use of Union taxpayer’s money in the
Member States (following the example of the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control), not only
at the level of the political and expert monitoring but also in the programming process of the new
cohesion policy, would lead to a lower error rate level, better transparency and democratic legitimacy
of the process of Union funds absorption;
75. Deplores the fact that in 62 % of the audited regional policy transactions affected by error and in 76 %
of the ESF audited transactions, sufficient information was available for the Member State authorities
to have detected and corrected at least some of these errors before claiming reimbursement from the
Commission and that in rural development, the Court of Auditors found that on-the-spot checks had
not always been carried out properly; therefore calls on the Member States and the Commission to
urgently reinforce first-level checks to address this unacceptably high level of mismanagement;
76. Calls on the Council and the Coreper to see to it that on a regular basis, national control systems, in
particular, and the co-responsibility of the Member States for better spending, in general, are put as
specific points on the agenda of the competent Council meetings of ministers and discussed in the
presence of the Commission;
( 1 ) COM(2012) 281, point 1, page 2.
( 2 ) Introductory remarks made by Mr Caldeira on 6 November 2012 when presenting the Annual report of the European
Court of Auditors concerning the financial year 2011 to the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control.

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L 308/42
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
16.11.2013
77. Calls, pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 287(4) TFEU, for the Court of Auditors to
deliver an opinion on the independence of the national audit authorities in the context of shared
management;
Public procurement, eligibility criteria
78. Notes
that
numerous
errors
derive
from
the
incorrect
application
of
national
rules
(in
particular,
as
regards the ESF errors in 2011, breaches of national rules have contributed 86 % of the error rate),
and that eligibility error (especially for grant beneficiaries) and breaches of public procurement rules
(in particular for shared and indirectly managed funds) are the two main sources of errors;
79. Welcomes, for this reason, the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council
on public procurement adopted by the Commission on 20 December 2011 (COM(2011) 896), as it
aims at simplifying the rules and making them more flexible in order to increase the efficiency of
public spending; notes nevertheless that the national rules on public procurement should also be
simplified in accordance with Union legislation;
80. Deplores the fact that errors can also derive from the addition to Union rules of national rules which
are unnecessarily complex and therefore difficult to implement and verify by the Member States
themselves, while creating an additional and artificial burden for the beneficiaries (‘gold plating’);
81. Points out that such rules not only increase error rates unnecessarily, as all infringements will be
considered an error in Union budget management even though it is the Member States that are
responsible for these pointlessly complex rules, but could also lead to the Commission issuing
recovery claims;
82. Urges the Member States to identify and report to Parliament, in coordination with the Commission
and in consultation with the Court of Auditors, those unnecessarily complex national rules in order to
simplify them; notes that in this regard, the potential for elaboration of standard tender documen
tation on the public procurement procedures should be further explored;
83. Calls on the Commission, where breaches of budgetary and competition law are known to have
occurred in the Member States (particularly in the award of public contracts), to apply more stringent
monitoring and conditions and, in case of doubt, to suspend financing from the Structural Funds
immediately until compliance with the rules and hence a use of the funds which accords with Union
law are guaranteed;
84. Encourages the services of the Commission to launch a pilot action plan, as DG Employment did in
policy sectors with a high error risk, aiming at identifying key areas where simplification could help to
reduce the error rate at beneficiary level;
85. Urges the Commission to develop additional instruments to facilitate the process of consultation with
beneficiaries and to strengthen their direct feedback to the national authorities, in line with the efforts
to simplify the national rules and to reduce the error rate;
86. Once again requires the Commission to name the Member States responsible for the cumulative
quantifiable errors identified; rejects the argument that the constraints imposed on the Court of
Auditors by its statistical sample method, which effectively prevents the Court of Auditors from
naming Member States with the highest error rate; calls on the Court of Auditors to compare its
audit findings with those of the Commission in order to identify those Member States or regions most
affected by the level and/or occurrence of errors;

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16.11.2013 Official
Journal
of
the
European
Union L
308/43
European Stability Mechanism
87. Notes the entry into force of the European Stability Mechanism but regrets that this mechanism was
set up outside the Union’s institutional framework, as this precludes any democratic, political and
budgetary control by the Union institutions and in particular by Parliament; emphasises the fact that
the creation outside the institutions of the Union represents a setback in the evolution of the Union,
essentially at the expense of Parliament, the Court of Auditors and the Court of Justice of the
European Union; deems it essential that the ESM will be discussed at least once a year in a
plenary debate in the presence of the Council and the Commission on the basis on the annual
report from the ESM Board of Auditors;
Anti-fraud Strategy
88. Calls on the Commission to report on and evaluate the anti-fraud strategies established within each
directorate-general following the adoption of the Commission’s new Anti-Fraud Strategy (COM(2011)
376) and the Internal Action Plan (SEC(2011) 787) for its implementation in June 2011;
Tobacco Industry
89. Calls on the Commission to report how it intends to improve as soon as possible its provision to
introduce a pro-active management of potential conflict of interests and ‘revolving doors’;
90. Calls on the Commission to report how it has implemented Article 5(3) of the WHO Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control and how it intends to improve and clarify existing rules;
91. Calls on the Commission to provide Parliament as soon as possible with an overview about all (public
and non-public) documents and all persons involved in the negotiations of the four cooperation
agreements with the tobacco industry;
92. Notes that the Union is a under signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
(FCTC); deems the implementation of Article 5(3) as a legally binding obligation to the Union; calls on
the Commission to report on how the provisions of Article 5(3) have been implemented in the Union
and its institutions, especially considering the following question: how far does implementation follow
guidelines set by the WHO to Article 5(3); questions how and why the Commission has deviated from
those guidelines;
Budgetary management
Implementation rates, budgetary surplus, outstanding budgetary commitments
93. Welcomes the high
level of budget implementation, namely
99,3
% of commitment appropriations
(the same as in 2010) and 98,6 % of payment appropriations (2010: 96,6 %) and the reduction of the
overall surplus from EUR 4,5 billion in 2010 to EUR 1,5 billion in 2011;
94. Is concerned by the acceleration in the rate of payment requests by the Member States towards the
end of the year as regards the ESF, the ERDF and the Cohesion fund, because this prevents the
Commission from requesting an amending budget from the budgetary authority in due time in
order to increase the payment appropriations with a view to honouring the claims received;
therefore asks the Commission to urge the Member States to transmit most of the claims as early
as possible;
95. Warns against the concentration of a significant proportion of payments in the month of December,
which could affect the effectiveness of supervisory and control systems and increase the risk of error;
96. Expresses
concern
about
the
significant
increase
in
outstanding
budgetary
commitments
from
EUR
13
billion in 2010 to EUR 207 billion, mostly in cohesion policy, for the programming period 2007-
2013;
97. Insists that sufficient payment appropriations need to be made available in future years from the
outset;

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L 308/44
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
16.11.2013
Revenue
Traditional own resources and VAT
98. Notes that the Court of Auditors, in its annual report, found that the revenue calculation was free
from material error; is concerned, however, that as far as traditional own resources (TOR) are
concerned, the Court of Auditors’ audit cannot cover undeclared imports or those that have
escaped customs surveillance and that the annual report does not, therefore, provide an estimation
of losses to the Union budget in that respect; suggests that the Court of Auditors issue a special report
on undeclared imports based on a survey in at least 10 Member States and to adjust its working
programme for 2013 accordingly;
99. Is of the opinion that the Court of Auditors’ performance audit in the area of revenue is of particular
value and encourages the Court of Auditors to concentrate more of its resources in this area; regrets
that the annual report, around which much of the Court of Auditors’ work is centred, nevertheless
provides little information as to the real situation as far as efficient collection of revenue is concerned;
calls on the Court of Auditors to place greater emphasis in its annual report on the revenue audit, in
order to present a comprehensive picture of the effectiveness of the revenue collection system in the
Member States, and of the consequences of its inadequate functioning;
100. Recalls that Parliament monitors the situation with regard to the collection of own resources in its
own-initiative report on the protection of the Union’s financial interests, which is drafted annually on
the basis of a Commission report;
101. Is deeply concerned by the Court of Auditors’ conclusion that there are continuing weaknesses in
national customs supervision and that it cannot, therefore, be ensured that the TOR recorded are
complete and correct; finds it unacceptable that the control of customs procedures in Member States
is not functioning properly; recalls that the correct operation of customs procedures has direct
consequences in terms of the calculation of the value added tax; is deeply worried by the Court of
Auditors’ finding in Special Report No 13/2011 that the application of customs procedure 42 ( 1 )
alone accounted for extrapolated losses of approximately EUR 2 200 million ( 2 ) in 2009 with regard
to the seven Member States which were audited, representing 29 % of the VAT theoretically applicable
on the taxable amount of all the imports made under customs procedure 42 in 2009 in those seven
Member States;
102. Stresses the Court of Auditors’ conclusion in Special Report No 13/2011 that ‘VAT evasion affects the
financial interests of Member States; notes that it has an impact on the Union budget as it leads to
lower VAT-based own resources. notes that this loss is compensated by the GNI-based own resource,
distorting individual Member States’ contributions to the EU budget and that tax fraud undermines the
functioning of the internal market and prevents fair competition’ ( 3 );
103. Emphasises that the Court of Auditors’ findings in Special Report No 13/2011 were corroborated by
the conclusions of the fact-finding mission of Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control to the
ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, which took place on 19 and 20 September 2012; points out that
the Union is a major trading block and that large European ports handle many ships; notes that as a
result of logistical pressures, those ports rely on the procedures provided for in the customs regulation
and that authorised economic operators gain in importance; notes, however, that Rotterdam, for
example, the largest European port granted a high-level of simplified custom procedures to
importers compared with other major ports in the Union; stresses that the simplification of
customs procedures must include a proper and effective risk based policy approach leading to
effective control systems avoiding the distortion of competition and that simplified procedures
should be effectively monitored regularly by the Commission and Member States; notes that
reduced controls could translate into major economic advantages for a port; stresses that any unjus
tified reduced control may seriously harm the Union’s financial interests and that of the Member
States;
( 1 ) Regime used by an importer in order to obtain a VAT exemption when the imported goods will be transported to
another Member State and where the VAT is due in the Member State of destination.
( 2 ) Of which EUR 1 800 million were incurred in the seven selected Member States and EUR 400 million in the 21
Member States of destination of the imported goods in the sample.
( 3 ) Special Report No 13/2011, p. 11, point 5.

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16.11.2013 Official
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European
Union L
308/45
104. Takes note of the initiatives taken by the Commission by way of follow-up to the Court of Auditors’
Special Report No 13/2011; regrets, however, that according to the First Eurofisc Activity Report for
2011 issued in May 2012, the main findings and observations of that Special Report are still
outstanding; requests information before September 2013 on progress made;
105. Is seriously concerned, in particular, by the finding of the Working Field 3 that in most Member
States, tax administrations have no direct access to customs data and that automated cross-checking
with tax data is, therefore, not possible;
106. Regrets that Recommendation No 6 of Special Report No 13/2011, calling for the amendment of the
VAT Directive in order to identify separately the intra-community supplies following imports under
the procedure in question in the trader’s VAT recapitulative statement, has not been implemented by
the Commission; notes that this would allow an effective reconciliation between the customs and tax
data in the Member State of importation; requests information as to the reasons why this was not
done;
107. Deplores the fact that the Council has not acted upon the Court of Auditors’ recommendation to
amend the VAT Directive in order to hold the importer (or his tax representative) jointly and severally
liable for the VAT loss in the Member State of destination in cases where a complete and timely VAT
recapitulative statement is not submitted by him;
108. Calls on the Commission to intensify its efforts to remedy the situation with regard to the state of
implementation of the Court of Auditors’ recommendations contained in its Special Report
No 13/2011;
109. Deplores the fact that the Commission and the Member States have been unable to ensure timely
implementation of the Modernised Customs Code (MCC), which was supposed to become applicable
on 24 June 2013 at the latest; stresses that any further delays will impede adequate protection of the
Member States’ financial interests and, consequently, those of the Union itself; emphasises the fact that
according to the Commission, this situation is due, to a considerable extent, to the fact that the
Member States cannot agree on the most appropriate IT development methodology and that they are
facing limitations in human and financial resources; is concerned that the Commission and the
Member States are lagging behind this very important reform in the situation where the collection
of own resources is less than satisfactory;
110. Calls on the Commission to make an evaluation of the cost of postponing full application of the MCC,
quantifying the budgetary consequences of such postponement;
111. Points to a study commissioned by Parliament on the ‘Implementation of the Modernised Customs
Code’ ( 1 ), from which it results that, in the best-case scenario, the entry into force of the MCC (which
will be called the Union’s Customs Code if the recast proposal by the Commission is adopted) could
take place in December 2017; reminds the Commission that the Union has exclusive competence in
the area of the customs union and that it should, therefore, ensure compliance by the Member States;
calls on the Commission, as a consequence, to step up its efforts to ensure that the MCC is imple
mented at the earliest possible date, and in any event to avoid the worst-case scenario indicated in the
study for March 2033;
112. Deplores the fact that two important initiatives aimed at combating VAT fraud, namely the proposal
for a Council Directive amending Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of value added tax
as regards a quick reaction mechanism against VAT fraud (COM(2012) 428) and the proposal for a
Council Directive amending Directive 2006/112/EC as regards an optional and temporary application
of the reverse charge mechanism in relation to supplies of certain goods and services susceptible to
fraud (COM(2009) 511), are blocked in the Council;
113. Welcomes the fact that EUROFISC, a common operational structure allowing Member States to react
rapidly to cross-border VAT fraud, became fully operational; notes that a specific working field was
created in February 2011 in order to exchange targeted information on fraudulent transactions using
the customs procedure 42;
( 1 ) PE 475.094.

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114. Calls on the Commission to strengthen its coordination with the Member States in order to collect
reliable data on the customs and VAT gap in the respective countries and to report on a regular basis
to Parliament in that regard;
GNI-based revenue – the volume of tax evasion and avoidance and its impact on the Union budget and the
economies of the Member States
115. Welcomes the Commission’s Action Plan to strengthen the fight against tax fraud and tax evasion
(COM(2012) 722); commends, in particular, the Commission’s proposal to set up a Quick Reaction
Mechanism and insists that this would enable Member States to respond more swiftly and efficiently
to VAT fraud; stresses that the potential cost of tax evasion and avoidance for Member States is
estimated to amount to EUR 1 trillion every year while in comparison, the Union budget for 2011 in
terms of appropriations for commitments amounted only to EUR 142,5 billion;
Agriculture
116. Deplores the increase of the error rate to 4,0 % in the policy area ‘Agriculture and rural development’
covering the expenditures of the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and the European
Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and of the policy groups environment, fisheries
and health;
117. Recalls that the deterioration of the state of play in agriculture and, in particular, in rural development,
is the main cause of the increase of the most likely error rate for all payments in the financial year
2011;
118. Notes that even though 0,2 % of this error rate has been generated by a change in the Court of
Auditors’ methodology concerning the cross compliance infringements the error rate for the entire
agriculture policy area increased between 2010 and 2011 in real terms by 1,5 %: from 2,3 % in 2010
to 3,8 % in 2011 ( 1 );
119. Takes note of the Court of Auditors’ approach which for the first time included cross compliance
infringements in the calculation of the error rate as ‘cross- compliance obligations are substantive legal
requirements that must be met by all recipients of direct aid and are the basic and in many cases the
only conditions to be respected in order to justify the payments of full amount of direct payments’ ( 2 );
asks the Court of Auditors in this context to further explain and justify its changes of methodology;
calls on the Commission and the Court of Auditors to agree on a consistent methodology with a view
to rendering the yearly budget implementation figures more comparable;
120. Takes note that the Court of Auditors restricts its audit only to certain Statutory Management
Requirements and to the Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition requirements and that
‘the error rate must be used with great care and not be treated as an overall assessment of the
respect of the cross compliance obligations by farmers’ ( 3 );
121. Notes that it is up to the Member States to define ‘good agricultural and ecological condition’ and to
which acreage it will be applied; criticises strongly the fact that beneficiaries who very often are not
farmers will receive direct payments; considers this to be an incorrect allocation of funds which could
be saved;
122. Takes note that Member States recovered EUR 172,7 million from the beneficiaries during the 2011
financial year and that the overall outstanding amount still to be recovered from the beneficiaries at
year-end was EUR 1 206,9 million, of which EUR 458 million has been charged to the Member States
for EAGF expenditure in line with the 50/50 rule; acknowledges that around EUR 25,7 million will be
borne by the Union budget for cases reported irrecoverable during financial year 2011; points out that
DG AGRI cleared all pending non-recovered cases dating from 2006 or 2002 by Decision
2011/272/EU ( 4 ) of 29 April 2011 and that following the application of the 50/50 rule, EUR 27,8
million was charged to the Member States while EUR 29,2 million was borne by the Union budget for
reasons of irrecoverability;
( 1 ) Data communicated by Mr Kubyk on behalf of the Court of Auditors on 6 December 2012 during the hearing with
Dacian Ciolo in the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control.
( 2 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 3.9, footnote 11.
( 3 ) Data communicated by Mr Kubyk on behalf of the Court of Auditors on 6 December 2012 during the hearing with
Dacian Ciolo in the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control.
( 4 ) Commission Implementing Decision 2011/272/EU of 29 April 2011 on the clearance of the accounts of the paying
agencies of Member States concerning expenditure financed by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) for
the 2010 financial year (OJ L 119, 7.5.2011, p. 70).

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123. Welcomes the fact that for the first time, the Court of Auditors provides two specific assessments: on
the market and direct support on the one hand, and on rural development on the other hand and
considers that it provides a better insight into each policy area; calls on the Court of Auditors,
however, to present the error rate for rural development separately from environment, fisheries and
health and not on an aggregate basis;
124. Welcomes the register providing information on beneficiaries of the Common Agricultural Policy
payments in the Member States; considers this tool to be an important step towards more trans
parency in the agricultural sector; recalls, nevertheless, that in accordance with the ruling of the
European Court of Justice of 9 November 2010 invalidating the legislation as regards natural
persons ( 1 ), Commission Regulation (EC) No 259/2008 ( 2 ) has been modified limiting the obligation
to publish information on the beneficiaries of CAP payments to legal persons; notes the Commission’s
proposal for new transparency rules, adopted on 25 September 2012, to make it obligatory for
Member States to disclose data of all beneficiaries including natural persons, except for beneficiaries
whose annual aid does not exceed a certain de minimis threshold, taking into consideration the
objections made in the judgment of the Court of Justice, in particular on data protection concerns;
125. Takes note of the current practice in the management of Sapard funds, namely that funds are only
exceptionally recovered in full if the fraudulent behaviour for a part of the project has artificially
created the conditions without which the beneficiary would not have obtained support for the project
at all; expresses concern about the current practice, recommended by the Commission to the Sapard
agency, that a project of which a part has been affected by fraudulent behaviour can be deemed
eligible for funding if the project is not deemed to be of an artificial nature, i.e. the percentage of the
costs of all the affected elements does not exceed 50 % of the total costs of the entire project; is
especially concerned about the lack of deterrence from fraudulent behaviour this practice exhibits;
Market and direct support
126. Regrets that the EAGF payments are not free from material error in 2011, the most likely error rate
being estimated by the Court of Auditors at 2,9 %, and that the control systems audited by the Court
of Auditors in Austria, Finland, Hungary, Italy and Spain were found to be only partially effective in
assuring the legality and regularity of payments;
127. Notes that the most frequent accuracy error relates to area over-declarations, most of which amount
individually to less than 5 % and deplores that the larger error rates relate to cases where eligibility of
permanent pasture was incorrectly assessed and recorded by Member States’ authorities in the Land
and Parcel Identification System (LPIS);
128. Endorses the recommendation of the Court of Auditors that the correct assessment of eligibility of
permanent pasture should be ensured ( 3 );
129. Notes with disappointment that the Court of Auditors found that the effectiveness of the Integrated
Administration and Control System (IACS) is adversely affected by inaccurate data in the various
databases and also by an incorrect administrative treatment of claims by the paying agencies in certain
Member States; reminds the Commission that the introduction of IACS led to a decrease in errors and
calls on the Commission to remedy the situation without any delays using suspensions and inter
ruptions of funding when necessary;
130. Is concerned that the Commission, in its annual activity report, maintained its reservations concerning
the IACS systems in Bulgaria and Portugal due to serious deficiencies; emphasises the fact that, given
the importance of IACS for the management and control of agricultural expenditure, serious defi
ciencies in its set-up and operation exposes the Commission to reputational risk, even if the financial
impact does not exceed the materiality threshold;
( 1 ) Joined cases C-92/09 and C-93/09, ECR 2010, p. I-11063.
( 2 ) Commission Regulation (EC) No 259/2008 of 18 March 2008 laying down detailed rules for the application of
Council Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 as regards the publication of information on the beneficiaries of fund deriving
from the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development
(EAFRD) (OJ L 76, 19.3.2008, p. 28).
( 3 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 3.45.

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131. Regrets that some systematic failures in the management and controls systems observed and reported
already in previous years have not been remedied: incorrect classification of land use, overstatement of
eligible land in LPIS or incorrect application of the obvious error concept;
132. Deplores the fact that deficiencies were found by the Court of Auditors in on-the-spot measurements;
insists that on-the-spot inspections should be of the quality necessary to identify the eligible area in a
reliable manner ( 1 ).
133. Regrets that the quality of the work performed by the certifying bodies audited by the Court of
Auditors under the new voluntary procedure for the reinforcement of assurance is insufficient;
134. Calls on the Commission to take all necessary actions so that paying agencies remedy weaknesses
detected in their administration and control system; insists that the design and quality of the work to
be performed by certifying bodies must be improved in order to provide reliable assessment of legality
and regularity of operations in the paying agencies; asks the Commission to investigate if it is possible
to cooperate with private individuals to verify cross compliance standards and reduce administrative
burden;
Rural development
135. Regrets that payments in the policy sector ‘rural development, environment, fisheries and health’ are
not free from material error in 2011, the most likely error being estimated by the Court of Auditors
at 7,7 %, and that the examined supervisory and control systems were partially effective;
136. Notes that the major part of the most likely error rate concern the eligibility of non-area-related
measures such as modernisation of agricultural holdings and the setting up of basic services for the
economy and rural population, partly due to the often complex rules and eligibility conditions;
137. Expresses concern about the fact that many errors were detected when beneficiaries were public
bodies, such as municipalities or the paying agency itself ( 2 ) and that those errors concerned issues
such as declaring ineligible VAT or not complying with public procurement; calls, therefore, on the
Commission and the Member States to ensure that the existing rules are better enforced;
138. Reiterates its regrets that the Commission follows different methodologies to quantify public
procurement errors in the two policy areas agriculture and cohesion both of which being furthermore
not in line with the Court of Auditors’ methodology and calls on the Commission and the Court of
Auditors to harmonise the treatment of public procurement errors in these two policy areas
urgently ( 3 );
139. Notes that the Court of Auditors identifies significant problems concerning the implementation of
cross-compliance requirements for the identification and registration of animals ( 4 ); calls on the
Member States to improve the quality of checks throughout the year without imposing an additional
administrative load on the beneficiaries;
140. Regrets that weaknesses were identified by the Court of Auditors in the supervisory and control
systems of the Member States for rural development and that the three elements audited were
affected by deficiencies: i.e. the administrative and controls systems to ensure correct payment, the
control systems based on physical on-the-spot checks and systems to ensure implementation and
control of cross compliance;
141. Calls on the Commission to take account of findings identified by the Court of Auditors when
establishing the audit strategy of DG AGRI’s clearance of accounts;
( 1 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 3.23.
( 2 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 4.12.
( 3 ) See paragraph 86 of the abovementioned Parliament’s Resolution of 10 May 2012.
( 4 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 4.18.

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142. Is particularly worried about DG AGRI management representation as the Annual Activity report does
not provide for an explanation of why the residual error rate for rural development had ‘increased
significantly compared to the previous year’ ( 1 );
143. Notes that according to the Court of Auditors the DG AGRI residual error rate is much lower than the
Court of Auditors’ finding because it is ‘based on figures reported by the Member States for 2010, and
as identified in the Courts audit, Member States do no detect or report all ineligible expenditure due to
weaknesses in their checks of paying agencies’ ( 2 );
144. Is particularly concerned by the fact that DG AGRI considers that ‘in general Member States are
improving their management and control systems for rural expenditure’ ( 3 ) while the audit of the
Court of Auditors shows that the supervisory and control systems in Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Italy
and Spain were not effective or only partially effective ( 4 ); is of the opinion that such a big divergence
between the assessments of the Commission and the Court of Auditors makes it difficult for the
discharge authority to reach objective conclusions; insists on data exchange between the Court of
Auditors and the Commission to facilitate coordinated back casting for past periods in order to ensure
a reliable database for future comparisons; is convinced of the usefulness of tripartite meetings
between the Court of Auditors, the Commission and representatives from Member States
concerned when looking for common analysis;
145. Calls, therefore, on the Commission to take the necessary measures in order to reduce the error rate in
rural development and welcomes the fact that DG AGRI has set up a working group to assess the root
causes of rural development errors and develop corrective actions for the current and future
programming periods;
146. Calls on the Commission, nevertheless, to set up an action plan to reduce the error rate not only by
providing guidance and assistance to the Member States by means of best practice examples but also
by increasing monitoring on the implementation of programmes and using sanctions such as inter
ruptions and suspensions of payments in particular in rural development more effectively where
needed;
147. Calls on the Commission to further improve the quality control of accreditation criteria for paying
agencies and certifying bodies;
148. Fully supports the Court of Auditors’ recommendations that the rules and conditions for rural
development should be further simplified and that Member States should ensure that existing rules
are better enforced;
Environment, public health and food safety
149. Is concerned, in this context, about the presentation of environment and health policy areas together
with rural development and fisheries in the annual report of the Court of Auditors on the imple
mentation of the Union budget, as it is stated that the payments by year-end were affected by material
errors; takes careful note that this conclusion concerns solely the area of rural development; requests
that the Court of Auditors explore a different presentation in the future, which takes into account the
good performance of the policy areas in the remit of the Parliament’s Committee on the Environment,
Public Health and Food Safety;
150. Considers the overall implementation rates of the budgetary headings for environment, climate action,
public health and food safety as satisfactory; emphasises the fact that 2011 is the first budget year
under the complete budget procedure laid down in TFEU; recalls, again, that only 0,76 % of the Union
budget is dedicated to those policy instruments falling under the responsibility of the Committee on
the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, bearing in mind the clear Union added value in these
fields and the support from Union citizens for the environmental and climate policies of the Union;
( 1 ) DG AGRI annual activity report, point 3.1.1.1.6, p. 58.
( 2 ) Intervention of Ms Budbergyte on behalf of the Court of Auditors on 6 December 2012 during the hearing of
Commissioner Dacian Ciolo in the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control.
( 3 ) DG AGRI, annual activity report, p. 79.
( 4 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, Annex 4.2.

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151. Emphasises the fact that the overall rate of execution amounted to 99,92 % in the field of
environment and climate action; notes, furthermore, that the implementation of payments was at a
level of 88,05 %; takes note that for the first year, the implementation of budget lines for environment
and climate action has been done by the Directorate-General ENV and the newly created Directorate-
General CLIMA, becoming budgetary self-responsible in 2011;
152. Is satisfied with the achievement of 99,82 % of the implementation of the LIFE+ operational budget
showing the necessity and acceptance as single instrument promoting solely environmental protection;
notes that in 2011, EUR 267 179 828 was dedicated to projects in Member States, EUR 8 997 284
supported the operational activities of NGOs, EUR 46 817 919 was used for measures intended to
support the Commission’s role of initiating and monitoring policy and legislation development and
EUR 17 589 277 was used for administrative support; intends further monitor the allocation of the
LIFE+ funds among the three strands of its effective use;
153. Is aware that the payment rate of LIFE+ actions under the responsibility of DG CLIMA in the first year
reached only 58,23 %; takes note that this low consumption is due to the fact that the preparation of
the 2011 budget was too optimistic and the requested amounts were too high; notes, furthermore,
that final payment settlements were only requested in 2012; emphasises the fact that unused payment
appropriations have been transferred to other budget lines in the context of the global transfer
exercise taking place each year in November; is aware that in 2011, those payment appropriations
have been used for the shortfalls for Cohesion budget lines;
154. Considers the progress in the implementation of five Pilot Projects (PPs) and two Preparatory Actions
(PAs), amounting all together to EUR 11 765 508, as satisfactory; is aware that the execution of those
actions can be burdensome for the Commission, due to the small amounts available in relation to the
necessary procedures for execution (e.g. action plan, call for proposals); encourages the Commission to
focus in the future on PPs and PAs with true added value for the Union;
155. Takes note of the implementation level of 95,1 % for budget chapter 17 04 — Food and feed safety,
animal health, animal welfare and plant health; is aware that full implementation was not necessary
due to lower costs for bluetongue vaccination compared to the forecasts by Member States, due to the
shift of some Member States to voluntary, farmer financed programmes and due to a decrease in BSE
cases; observes the increase in payment execution to 98,1 % compared to 90,5 % in 2010; encourages
the Commission to strengthen the cooperation with Member States in order to receive the best and
most accurate data for the forecasts in this policy area;
Fisheries
156. Takes note of the communication from the Commission to Parliament, the Council and the Court of
Auditors on the annual accounts of the European Union for the financial year 2011; takes note of the
Annual Report of the Court of Auditors concerning the financial year 2011; believes that the area of
maritime affairs and fisheries does not figure prominently in those documents;
157. Expresses its satisfaction that the implementation for Title 11 of the budget was globally satisfactory
with an implementation rate of 97 % for commitment appropriations and 95 % for payment appro
priations; notes, furthermore, that the Court of Auditors had no major observations on DG MARE’s
Annual Activity Report;
158. Calls on the Court of Auditors to present the error rate for fisheries separately from environment,
rural development and health, and not on an aggregate basis;
159. Recalls that in 2010, there was insufficient monitoring of catches under fisheries partnership
agreements which resulted in additional payments to cover catches in excess of the negotiated
quota; welcomes, therefore, the action taken by DG MARE to improve the monitoring of catches
under fisheries partnership agreements, which will hopefully prevent a recurrence of this issue high
lighted by the Court of Auditors; notes that the overfished amounts in 2010 were deducted from the
2011 quota;

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160. Urges the Court of Auditors once again to include an audit on the external dimension of the common
fisheries policy in its work programme;
161. Notes the reservations made in DG MARE’s Annual Activity Report in respect of the European
Fisheries Fund (EFF) following the Court of Auditors’ special report 12/2011 regarding investments
on board funded under Article 25(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006 ( 1 ) which increased the ability
of vessels to catch fish; understands that DG MARE has been working with Member States to address
the identified problems by reviewing the projects funded under this provision of the EFF with the aim
of eliminating ineligible expenditure;
162. Questions the technical assessment methods that led to certain expenditure under Article 25(2) of
Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006 being declared ineligible on the grounds that it would increase
capacity when the expenditure concerned were, in fact, designed to modernise fishing activity; calls
on the Commission to propose a fresh definition of capacity, in particular in order to avoid this kind
of re-interpretation in the future;
163. Expresses its deep concern that public aid has been used to increase the vessels’ ability to catch fish
and thus increased overcapacity in the Union fisheries sector;
164. Notes the second reservation in DG MARE’s Annual Activity Report regarding the management and
control of the implementation of the EFF in the Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands,
Romania, Slovakia, Spain and in Sweden;
165. Considers that in the future, the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors should have a separate
breakdown for the figures relating to DG MARE in order to increase transparency and that the
number of tests should be increased in order to ensure higher general accuracy from the sample;
166. Urges the Member States to take all necessary action to address the identified problems and thereby,
make it possible to lift the existing reservations;
Regional policy; energy and transport
Error rate compared to effectiveness
167. Deplores the fact that the Court of Auditors estimated the most likely error rate in this spending area
at 6 %, which is unacceptably high; notes that this error rate remains below those reported by the
Court of Auditors for the period 2006-2008 due to reinforced control provisions and a strict policy
of interruptions and suspensions when deficiencies were detected, in line with the Commission’s 2008
Action Plan;
168. Is concerned about the fact that for 62 % of the regional policy transactions affected by error,
sufficient information was available to Member States’ authorities to have detected and corrected at
least some of the errors prior to certifying the expenditure to the Commission; calls, therefore, on the
Commission to urge the Member States to improve their management and control systems in order to
detect and correct errors at national level; considers this to be a command imposed by the principle of
sound financial management (‘better spending’); emphasises that deficient national management and
control systems must have net corrections as a consequence;
169. Notes that the Court of Auditors assessed the work of seven national and regional audit authorities,
each from different Member States, and concluded that the audit authorities in Greece, Hungary, Latvia
and Portugal were effective, that the audit authorities in Italy-Sicily and Romania were partially
effective and that the audit authority in the Czech Republic was ineffective;
170. Calls on the Commission to use all available instruments over the next programming period 2014-
2020, as outlined in the Commission proposal (COM(2011) 615/2), in particular by means of
delegated acts and implementing acts, with a view to setting out conditions which the national
audit authorities shall fulfil and to adopting models for the audit strategy, the audit opinion and
the annual control report, as well as the methodology for the sampling method;
( 1 ) Council Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006 of 27 July 2006 on the European Fisheries Fund (OJ L 223, 15.8.2006, p. 1).

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171. Regrets the fact that according to the 2011 Annual Activity Report of DG REGIO, the countries with
the highest risk of incorrect payments for the 2007-2013 programming period are the Czech
Republic (11,4 %), Romania (11,2 %) and Italy (8,6 %);
172. Takes note that in 2011, the DG REGIO found serious deficiencies in five Member States: France,
Austria, Italy, Romania and the Czech Republic; notes that whereas the difficulties in France and
Austria have been identified by the national audit authorities themselves, the deficiencies in Italy,
Romania and the Czech Republic were primarily linked to the architecture of the management and
control systems;
173. Welcomes the initiative taken by its responsible committee to invite the responsible ministers from
the Member States with the weakest control system to Parliament with the view to explaining which
measures the respective country has taken to remedy the situation; in this context, expresses its
appreciation for the contribution made by the Czech Deputy Finance Minister in discussions with
the responsible committee; considers his presence in the committee to be a first step towards the
Member States assuming a more responsible role in managing Union funds; welcomes in this context
first contacts with the Romanian authorities and the Italian Parliament;
174. Takes note of the number of reservations (121 programmes) made by the Commission’s directorates-
general and amounts at risk representing, according to the Commissioner, EUR 1 600 million;
welcomes, at the same time, the fact that the increase is mainly due to a stricter approach
followed by the Commission, including a general rule that an accumulated residual risk of 2 %
would lead to a reservation for the programme concerned;
175. Notes the high number of the Commission’s reservations concerning the ERDF/CF management and
control systems for identified operational programmes for the period 2007-2013 in the following
Member States: Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain and United
Kingdom due to significant issues regarding the effective functioning of management and control
systems;
176. Notes the Commission’s reservations for the 2000-2006 period concerning the CF management and
control systems in Hungary and Spain, and concerning the ERDF linked to outstanding issues at
closure stage in Spain, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Cross-Border programmes, all due to reputational
reasons;
177. Notes with concern that SMEs are underrepresented in receiving funds compared to large companies;
invites the Commission and Member States to ensure that the eligibility rules, accounting obligations
and their practical implementation do not prohibitively rule out the participation of SMEs;
178. Is of the opinion that a swift implementation of workable FOI (Freedom of Information) laws across
the Union is imperative, as is the systematic, proactive and centralised disclosure of data and docu
ments, especially in relation to regional policy;
Sources of errors
179. Emphasises the fact that public procurement procedures and eligibility rules are particularly prone to
error;
180. Acknowledges the importance of managing authorities being adequately staffed; calls on Member
States to pay attention to this requirement; in order to comply with their obligations pursuant to
Article 53b(2) of the Financial Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 to take all necessary measures
to protect the Union’s financial interests when implementing the budget;
181. Points to the fact that the quantification of errors could give rise to a difference of treatment: notes
that whereas the Court of Auditors looks at compliance, according to which rules were either adhered
to or not, the Commission takes into consideration the financial impact of an error and financial
corrections may vary accordingly;

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182. Emphasises the fact that a complex body of rules is often at the origin of errors; shares, therefore, the
Commission’s approach to strive for simplification; warns against the risk which could stem from
additional national regulations increasing the administrative burden (i.e. ‘gold plating’, complicated
eligibility rules);
Reporting and financial corrections
183. Welcomes the Commission’s correction mechanisms which appropriately address errors and defi
ciencies detected over a multiannual period and at closure; notes that one third of ERDF programmes
had payments blocked in the course of 2012 and following 121 reservations pronounced in 2011,
DG REGIO has interrupted payment deadlines for 63 programmes, issued 115 warning letters and
initiated suspension procedures for 60 of those programmes;
184. Recalls that the financial corrections should not merely serve as a fine and that their application
should have a positive impact on the long-term improvements of the management and control
systems as well as on the recurrence of errors;
185. Is concerned about the findings of the Court of Auditors that there is no assurance that financial
correction mechanisms compensate for all operational programmes in an adequate manner and that
all material issues are resolved; moreover the Court of Auditors found no evidence that financial
correction mechanisms translate into lasting improvements to systems which would prevent
recurrence of the errors uncovered; refers in this respect specifically to the Special Report No
3/2012 ( 1 ) (points 83 and 84); calls, therefore, on the Commission to provide a comprehensive
assessment of the financial corrections made and their impact on the systems in respect of preventing
the recurrence of the same errors (specifically of a systemic nature) in the future; calls on the
Commission to inform Parliament about its conclusions by the end of 2013; invites the Commission
to use all relevant findings during the next programming period 2014-2020 and to put forward
proposals for amending regulations, as appropriate;
186. Observes with satisfaction the continuous efforts of the Commission to reinforce and, at the same
time, simplify the control provisions for cohesion policy; is of the opinion that the proposed measures
for the 2014-2020 programming period such as specific ex-ante conditionalities, annual management
declarations, certification of annual accounts, audit opinions or stricter rules for the substitution of
ineligible expenditure should further contribute to the reduction of the level of error; supports the
growing result orientation and the thematic concentration of cohesion policy that should assure high
added value of the co-financed operations;
187. Calls for payments from the Structural Funds to be subject to increased conditionality monitoring so
as to ensure that the rules on the proper use of Structural Funds are complied with in all Member
States;
Recommendations
188. Calls on the Commission to assist Member States in drafting comprehensive, meaningful and
comparable audit control reports, including a chapter on the contributions Union funds have made
in the respective countries to attain the Europe 2020 objectives, both at national and regional level,
considering each region’s individual potential for development and its possible transformation in an
economic growth centre;
189. In this context, draws the attention of the Commission and the Member States to the fact that under
the Europe 2020 objectives operational programmes should increasingly be designed in such a way
that its sub-objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely and, consequently, the
programme lends itself to performance audits; notes that the establishment of a common system of
result and impact indicators would contribute to the evaluation of the progress achieved under the
different programmes in the context of their effectiveness and efficiency and not only in terms of their
financial implementation;
190. Reminds the Member States that due to the strict time limits for project execution, a mature project
pipeline is required, especially for major infrastructure projects, in order to start their implementation
at the beginning of the next programming period 2014-2020;
( 1 ) Special Report No 3/2012 of the court of Auditors – Structural Funds: Did the Commission successfully deal with
deficiencies identified in the Member States’ management and control systems?

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191. Shares the Court of Auditors’ view that the Commission should further reinforce the present sanction
system (interruption, suspension, financial corrections) by reducing the possibility of replacing
ineligible expenditure with other expenditure during the next programming period thereby creating
an additional incentive for Member States to detect and correct errors at an early stage;
192. Calls on the Commission, in consultation with the Court of Auditors, to establish a transparent system
which allows, on the one hand, taking into consideration annual financial corrections but also, on the
other, financial corrections during the life span of a programming period;
193. Calls on the Commission to assist Member States in rendering first-level controls and national audit
authorities more effective by exchange of best practice and closer cooperation between the
Commission, the Court of Auditors and national authorities (‘tripartite meetings’); considers, in
addition, that the national audit authorities could put extra emphasis on the follow-up of the
achieved results and effectiveness of Union funds absorption, rather than applying only a quantitative
approach, regardless of the final project goals;
194. Calls on the Commission to start the preparation of a ‘best practices’ manual from the current
programming period, incorporating practical results, achieved effect and lessons learnt in order to
optimise the absorption process and to decrease the level of error rates; notes that in this regard, the
potential future beneficiaries for the next programming period 2014-2020, including Croatia, as well
as potential candidate countries, would profit;
Transport and tourism
195. Notes that in considering the implementation of the budget for the 2011 financial year, as in the
previous year, the Court of Auditors focused mainly on cohesion and energy policies rather than on
transport policy; stresses that transport policies are concerned with the development of the internal
market, increased competition, innovation and the integration of transport networks;
196. Notes that the EUR 51 million decrease in appropriations made in 2011 to the cooperation in
Transport to the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking was due to the review of industrial policy approach
and the decrease in payment appropriations of EUR 60 million for projects of common interests in
the trans-European transport networks was made for timing reasons and to allow full use of the
carryover from 2010; acknowledges that the reduction in cash-flow for Sesar Joint Undertaking was in
line with the recommendation of the Court of Auditors;
197. Is disappointed that following the low uptake of payment appropriations for transport safety in 2010
and the request to receive an explanation of this underspending from the Commission, no detailed
information about the level of appropriations and their uptake in 2011 was provided;
198. Notes that the characteristics of transport-related projects often leads to the concentration of a
significant proportion of payments in a limited period, especially towards the end of the year and
is concerned by the negative impact this can possibly have on the auditing exercise;
Employment and social affairs
Error rate compared to effectiveness
199. Notes that the Court of Auditors estimated that the most likely error rate in this spending area was
2,2 % and that the Court of Auditors’ audit indicate weaknesses in particular in the ‘first level checks’
of the expenditures, which are the responsibility of the managing authorities and intermediate bodies
in the Member States;
200. Notes that in 2011, the Director-General issued reservations in his annual activity report with regard
to operational programmes in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain, Latvia, Lithuania,
Romania, Slovakia and the United Kingdom;
201. Notes with satisfaction that the most likely error rate is close to the materiality threshold demon
strating that a consistent application of interruption, suspension and financial corrections has had a
positive effect on the overall error rate;

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202. Is concerned about the fact that for 76 % of the regional policy transactions affected by error sufficient
information was available to the Member States’ authorities to have detected and corrected at least
some of the errors prior to certifying the expenditure to the Commission;
203. Emphasises that it is the task of the national audit authorities to develop the necessary ‘internal self-
control’ of rules and measures in order to detect and correct errors committed at the ‘first level’;
204. Takes note of the number of reservations (24 programmes) made by the Commission’s DG
‘Employment’ (EMPL) in 2011 corresponding to EUR 57,7 million; notes, furthermore, that
payments for 21 programmes were temporarily interrupted, valued at EUR 911 million; welcomes
the strict approach followed by the Commission, including a general rule that an accumulated residual
risk of 2 % would lead to a reservation for the programme concerned;
205. Welcomes the fact that for the first time in 2011, the area of Employment and Social Affairs has been
sampled and appraised separately from the Cohesion Policy chapter; welcomes the decreased error rate
for this policy field, which stands at 2,2 %, compared to 3,9 % average for all policy fields; notes,
however, that ineligible costs were reimbursed;
206. Recalls the need to monitor and measure the performance of financial instruments against policy
goals — Europe 2020 objectives — in order to be able to identify shortcomings and to make
progress; calls for performance information and data be available on annual basis; is of the
opinion that in context of the current economic and financial crisis the need for multi-criteria
performance data on ESF interventions is crucial;
207. Regrets that despite reinforcements of ESF budget lines by means of transfers between budget lines
and via the Amending Budget, EUR 2,7 billion of outstanding payments to the beneficiaries could not
be paid due to insufficient payments appropriations; calls on the Commission to propose, and on the
Council to agree on, accurate payment appropriations in annual budgetary procedure in order to avoid
uncertainty and unnecessary procedural burden on the budgetary authority and provide beneficiaries
with timely payments;
208. Welcomes the fact that for the ESF, an amount of EUR 3,25 million was added to the Operational
Technical Assistance line in order to mobilise specific expertise and directly support the implemen
tation of a Greek ESF Operational Programme;
209. Stresses that the effectiveness and quality of work of ESF audit institutions needs to be improved;
210. Notes that the share of spending on employment strand within the Progress programme is slightly
lower than the share it has in the programme; following the conclusions of the evaluation report ( 1 )
considers that spending on policy advice, research and analysis and policy debate on employment
should be increased;
211. Reiterates its call to ensure, in the light of implementation, an orderly progression of the total
appropriations for payments in relation to the appropriations for commitments, so as to avoid any
abnormal evolution of outstanding commitments (RAL) (65 % of the total volume of the Cohesion
Funds at the end of 2011);
Sources of errors
212. Notes that the Court of Auditors detected the reimbursement of ineligible costs in 13 % of the 180
transactions audited in the ESF and that such errors account for 77 % of all quantifiable errors and
make up approximately 73 % of the estimated error rate for this policy group;
( 1 ) The Mid-term Evaluation of Progress — Final Report, Ecorys, 22 December 2011.

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213. Is deeply worried that 86 % of the error rate calculated by the Court of Auditors at Union level for the
ESF derives from the incorrect application of national rules, varying from clerical mistakes to
unnecessarily complex rules (‘gold plating’) to insufficient first level controls;
Reporting and financial corrections
214. Is of the opinion that the Commission’s correction mechanisms addresses appropriately errors and
deficiencies detected over a multi-annual period and at closure; notes that up to November 2012, the
Commission adopted, in addition to measures taken in 2011, two suspension decisions and 34
interruptions; the latter represent a value of EUR 153 million; notes, furthermore, that the
Commission imposed EUR 153 million of financial corrections until November 2012;
Progress on the closure of the 2000-2006 programming period
215. Recognises that Member States have to submit three closure documents: a certified statement of final
expenditure, including final payment application, a final report on implementation, and a declaration
on winding-up of the assistance; for the programming period 239 operational programmes are
concerned;
216. Takes note that 149 programmes (62 %) have been closed by the end of October 2012; notes that
commitment appropriations amounting to EUR 1 889 million were still open;
Fraud Prevention
217. Welcomes the development by DG EMPL and REGIO of smart IT tools for the prevention, detection
and investigation of fraud such as ARACHNE Risk Scoring Tool; points out that a pilot exercise was
carried out in Belgium, Portugal and Hungary which led to the further development of the initial risk
scoring tool with modules capable of enriching the data with external publicly available information;
understands that the ARACHNE tool will be ready in Spring 2013 while by the end of 2013, all
Member States will be able to use the tool on a voluntary basis;
Recommendations
218. Calls on the Commission to assist Member States in drafting comprehensive, meaningful and
comparable audit control reports, including a chapter on the contribution Union funds made in
the respective Member State to attain the Europe 2020 objectives;
219. Draws the attention, in this context, of the Commission and the Member States to the fact that under
the Europe 2020 objectives operational programmes should increasingly be designed in such a way
that their sub-objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely and, consequently, the
programme lends itself to performance audits;
220. Shares the Court of Auditors’ view that the Commission should further reinforce the present sanction
system (interruption, suspension, financial corrections) by reducing the possibility of replacing
ineligible expenditure with other expenditure during the next programming period thereby creating
an additional incentive for Member States to detect and correct errors at an early stage;
221. Calls on the Commission and the Court of Auditors to establish a transparent system which allows,
on the one hand, to take into consideration annual financial corrections but also, on the other,
financial corrections during the life span of a programming period;
222. Calls on the Commission to assist Member States in rendering first-level controls and national audit
authorities more effective by exchange of best practice and closer cooperation between the
Commission, the Court and national authorities (‘tripartite meetings’); welcomes tripartite meetings
as an important part in the contradictory process aiming at enhanced cooperation among the parties
resulting in a more effective detection and correction of errors, in particular with regard to the ESF;

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223. Agrees with the Commission that particular emphasis should be given to:
— improving the declaration of costs and their verification at national/regional level,
— supporting the management and control authorities in identifying the main sources of errors in
the most critical operational programmes,
— using increasingly the ‘Simplified Cost Options’ providing for reimbursements based on standard
scales of unit costs, indirect costs according to a predefined flat rate percentage of direct project
costs, as well as lump sum payments;
Bulgaria and Romania
224. Notes with concern the interim Commission’s report on the progress made by Romania under the
Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, especially in the light of Romania’s capability to protect the
financial interest of the Union; is concerned by the reports assessment that only limited progress has
been achieved in the prevention and sanctioning of corruption related to public procurement; stresses
the importance of the report’s suggestion that the Government materialises the appointment of a new
leadership for the prosecution and the National Anti-corruption Agency (DNA); calls on the
Commission to steadfastly and determinedly insist, as far as the Romanian Government is concerned,
that the Commission’s recommendations are complied with and clarified; expects, finally, a series of
measures from the Commission, in cooperation with the Romanian government, aimed at improving
the integrity of the Romanian legal system;
225. Notes with concern the Commission’s Report on the progress made by Bulgaria under the
Cooperation and Verification Mechanism with a view to further efforts needed in order to demonstrate
tangible results in the monitored sectors; calls upon the effective implementation of the established
legislative and institutional framework; notes with concern the Report’s statement that the Supreme
Judicial Council (SJC) has not used the new powers given to it accordingly, aimed at effectively
managing and leading the judiciary through a comprehensive reform process; welcomes the efforts
by the Bulgarian government to renew the SJC with a mandate able of implementing fundamental
reform through the following new rules: public hearings of the candidates for SJC, clear criteria for
their professional and educational qualification and vision for the efficiency, accountability and
integrity of the judiciary; acknowledges the fact that the new specialised structures put in place
illustrate a commitment to adapting the current structures to tackle organised crime more effectively;
takes note, however, that the Report suggests that these new instruments have not yet delivered the
expected results regarding important cases; notes with great concern that investigations into alleged
corruption and abuse of office by magistrates have received a particular weak response from the
judiciary; is fearful, furthermore, that a weak implementation of Public Procurement legislation could
result in an important source of corruption, serious violations of Union procurement rules as well as a
poor delivery of public goods with a European added value and waste of Union public money;
welcomes the amended public procurement law, establishing the ex-ante control on tender procedures
to guarantee the proper spending of the public resources; calls on the Commission steadfastly and
determinedly to insist, as far as the Bulgarian institutions are concerned, that the Commission’s
recommendations are complied with; expects, finally, a series of measures from the Commission, in
cooperation with the Bulgarian judiciary, to improve the integrity of the Bulgarian legal system;
Control of Structural Funds in the Czech Republic
226. Takes note that an Action plan has been implemented by the Czech government in 2012; notes with
concern the centralisation of the audit activities under the main audit authority in the Czech Ministry
of Finance since the Court of Auditors reported that this audit authority was ineffective; calls on the
Commission to report to the discharge authority on adjustments concerning the staff of the audit
authority, based on the Czech Government’s analysis, as requested in the Action Plan;

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L 308/58
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Official Journal of the European Union
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227. Takes note that the Commission has not applied any corrections due to the ineffectiveness of the audit
system in the Czech Republic; notes, however, that the Commission applied corrections for some of
the operational programmes, mainly due to shortcomings in the functioning of the management and
control systems (errors in public procurement and the selection of operations); notes that the
corrections applied can be allocated to other projects; is worried about information reported
initially by the Court of Auditors which suggested that the Czech Ministry of Finance used its role
as an audit authority and certification authority to influence the final error rate; requests that the
Commission report back to Parliament in detail on the matter; calls on the Commission to elaborate
in cooperation with the Czech Government and to follow up on the implementation of an existing
Action plan that tackles the shortcomings in the Audit system at the core;
Gender issues
228. Stresses that under Article 8 TFEU, the promotion of equality between men and women is a funda
mental principle of the Union; reiterates its demand for the implementation of gender budgeting by all
stakeholders in the Union budgetary procedure; calls, therefore, on the Court of Auditors to assess the
implementation of the Union budget from the gender perspective, where applicable;
229. Regrets that the annual report contains no observations from the Court of Auditors or any replies
from the Commission regarding spending related to the promotion of equality between women and
men;
230. Notes the Court of Auditors’ numerous observations, as well as the Commission’s replies on the
chapter of employment and social affairs, the policy area primarily covering gender equality; asks the
Court of Auditors to provide specific details if any of the observations concerning spending related to
gender equality;
231. Reiterates its call for further efforts to develop gender-specific data, which allow proper monitoring of
how budgetary allocations affect the economic and social opportunities of women and men, that can
be included in the reports on the implementation of the budget; underlines that the new Multiannual
Financial Framework provides an opportunity to develop and introduce such data, and implement
gender budgeting as a tool for good governance;
External relations, aid and enlargement
232. Stresses that the Union’s resources must be managed in line with the principles of transparency and
good governance; notes the Court of Auditors’ finding that payments for the 2011 financial year are
free from material error under heading 4 of the budget but that interim and final payments are
affected by material error; further notes that not all errors were quantifiable;
233. Points out the specific nature of the financing of the Union’s external assistance, which, although it
must be subject to the same rules and oversight requirements as the rest of the Union budget, is put
in place partly by persons and entities external to the Union under sometimes difficult conditions,
while needing to remain reactive and adaptable to crises and requirements;
234. Supports all the Court of Auditors’ recommendations in respect of the chapter on ‘External relations,
aid and enlargement’, in particular the recommendations concerning the Directorate-General of the
Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) and the necessary improvements it needs to make to the
management of the budget for the common foreign and security policy;
235. Stresses the need for greater transparency in the management of funds allocated to election obser
vation missions; calls on the Commission to send a report to the budgetary authority for each
financial year on the costs incurred for each mission, detailing all the budget items, including costs
associated with external service providers;
236. Draws attention to the need to re-use election observation mission materials (furniture, computers,
etc.) in other electoral missions or by Union delegations in order to maximise their use;

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237. Welcomes the development of an improved budget support risk management framework by the
Commission (in full application from 1 January 2013) as part of the new budget support guidelines
in response to a key recommendation from the Court of Auditors;
238. Notes, however, in respect of budget support, the reservations and warnings issued by the Court of
Auditors concerning the inherent risks of irregularity, fraud and corruption; reiterates its very firm
belief that budget support, while remaining an important channel for external aid, must be subject to
robust political, legal and audit-related preconditions;
239. Welcomes the results of the evaluation report of the effectiveness of the Union aid channelled through
civil society organisations (CSO-s); draws attention to one of the main recommendations of the report
to reduce the negative impact of cumbersome procedures on the effectiveness of the programmes
implemented by CSO-s and welcomes the fact that new options are put in place to simplify access to
funding;
240. Welcomes the fact that the Commission regards the visibility of Union’s projects as a key element in
good project implementation and that it has been made obligatory to prepare a communication plan
for each project;
241. Notes with satisfaction that the Court of Auditors’ estimated error rate for external aid under the
Union’s budget has been below materiality for two consecutive years; is concerned, however, that
interim and final payments were affected by material error and that the overall frequency of errors in
payments detected by the Court was higher than in the two previous years (33 % in 2011, up from
23 % in 2010 and 22 % in 2009);
242. Is concerned that EuropeAid’s and DG ECHO’s supervisory and control systems were again found to
be only partially effective; points, in particular, to the need to improve those systems in delegations;
calls on the Commission to set aside sufficient resources for delegation staff to perform monitoring
and supervision activities in a timely and satisfactory manner; welcomes the introduction of the new
version of the six-monthly External Assistance Management Report in July 2011, which aims to
strengthen the accountability links between delegations and EuropeAid headquarters;
243. Reiterates its concerns about the high frequency of encoding errors in the external aid management
information system (CRIS), which may compromise the reliability of the data used for the preparation
of the annual accounts; calls on the Commission to continue investing in the improvement of data
quality and the development of CRIS functionalities, in particular linking audit findings to the recovery
of funds ( 1 );
244. Looks forward to seeing the first results of the Commission’s new methodology for calculating the
residual error rate, to be applied for the first time across the external relations directorates in the
financial year 2012;
245. Joins the Court of Auditors in its strong concerns about the inadequacy of staff resources for aid
management, in particular in EuropeAid’s Internal Audit Unit and delegations, and the potential
detrimental effects of the high turnover rate of contractual staff in headquarters and the Commission
reorganisation of mid-2011 on aid management; appeals to Council, as the other arm of the
budgetary authority, to take its responsibility in ensuring that aid can continue to be managed in
accordance with the highest standards in future years;
246. Notes that in 2011, the first full year of operation of the European External Action Service (EEAS),
EEAS and Commission staff in delegations were separated in terms of their allocation and funding; is
concerned that in 2011, at least 43 person-years allocated to EuropeAid were used by the EEAS, over
and above the agreed flexibility limits defined in the Working Arrangements negotiated between both
organisations; urges the EEAS and the Commission to fully respect the Working Arrangements, seeing
in particular to the fact that EuropeAid staff focus on ensuring appropriate aid management, in order
to avoid putting the sound financial management of Union’s assistance at risk;
( 1 ) See also Special Report No 5/2012 of the Court of Auditors, ‘The Common External Relations Information System
(CRIS)’.

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Official Journal of the European Union
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247. Emphasises the fact that the envisaged reinforcement of EuropeAid staffing in the Neighbourhood
region should not be achieved by a reduction and transfer to the neighbourhood of staff managing
Union’s aid to Least Developed Countries and other Low Income Countries in other regions; is of the
opinion that if additional needs arise, they must be met with additional staff;
248. Urges the Commission and the EEAS to focus more on results and impact measurement in the design
of the new spending programmes under the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the
period 2014-2020, inter alia, by using pre-defined, country-specific, clear, transparent and measurable
indicators adapted to the specificities and objectives of each instrument; supports the Court of
Auditors’ recommendation that the Commission should define policy objectives to demonstrate
better how it secures Union added value during the next programming period; reiterates its call for
associating all relevant stakeholders, including civil society and local authorities in partner countries, in
the evaluation phase of Union’s assistance;
249. Is concerned by the difference in the methodologies applied by the Court of Auditors for the
calculation of the error rate for transactions for external relations, aid and enlargement in the
general budget on the one hand and for the level of error for payments from the EDFs on the
other hand; takes note that the Court of Auditors has decided to align its methodology from 2012
onwards in order to provide Parliament with a uniform picture of the activities in the area of the
external action of the Union;
250. Following the creation of the EEAS, requests a clear allocation and coordination of roles and respon
sibilities of the Commission and the EEAS as regards programming and implementation of the budget
in third countries;
251. Asks the Commission to report before July 2013 on the number of NGOs to which the Union
contributes but which do not generate any revenue other than funding from government agencies;
252. Calls for a detailed summary of the allocation of funding in Libya; calls for clarification as to whether
the subdelegation of the Union ambassador in Libya has been revoked;
253. Calls on the Commission to use a ‘traffic light’ system in the progress reports, for ease of reference, in
order to show what has improved or deteriorated from one year to the next;
Aid to Haiti
254. Is concerned to find that the performance indicators for the budget support to the Republic of Haiti
have not been made public; urges the Commission to make public those indicators and the respective
assessments of the Government of Haiti’s performance in order to qualify for budget support;
255. Notes that new criteria for budget support are set out in the Commission’s policy ‘The future
approach to EU budget support to third countries’; calls on the Commission to apply these criteria
from 2013 onwards in a transparent way to the budget support for the Government of Haiti;
256. Deeply regrets that, in spite of what was promised, the Commission has still not published a list of
Union funded projects in Haiti; calls on the Commission to publish this list without delay and to
provide an assessment of the sustainability of these projects in a five-year perspective;
257. Urges the Commission to carry out the postponed first ever overall impact evaluation of the Union’s
aid programme for Haiti in 2013 and to produce a report on this for the discharge authority;
258. Is concerned about the findings of the Court of Auditors, contained in its Special Reports Nos 1/2012
and 13/2012 on the Effectiveness of European Union Development Aid for Food security in Sub-
Saharan Africa and on the European Union Development Assistance for Drinking Water Supply and
Basic Sanitation in Sub-Saharan Countries respectively, which raise concerns about sustainability of the
Union aid; welcomes the Court of Auditors’ recommendations contained in those reports and urges
the Commission to take those recommendations on board in order to maximise the benefits from
Union’s development expenditure;

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259. Welcomes the creation, under the new Financial Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012, of Union
Trust Funds, which will increase the visibility of Union action and allow for stricter control over the
delivery chain of Union funds; asks the Commission to report to Parliament on the effectiveness of
those funds;
Research and other internal policies
260. Is concerned that the research framework programmes are implemented under centralised direct and
centralised indirect management involving six Commission directorates-general and two executive
agencies; notes that in addition, parts of the budget are implemented under indirect centralised
management by joint undertakings and the European Investment Bank;
261. Regrets that the large number of Commission services involved in that policy area renders decision-
making and the lines of responsibilities opaque; calls on the Commission to review the distribution of
Commissioners’ portfolios in order to better reflect competences distribution of the committees of
Parliament and, as it is, wide spread practice in Member States;
262. Is concerned about the delay in dismantling the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) in Lithuania, due
to conflicts between the authorities and the contractors; welcomes and supports the fact that the
Commission and the international donor community decided to suspend financial support for the
project, in line with the recommendations of Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, until the
conflict has been solved;
263. Is deeply concerned by the current deficiency in viable knowledge on the amounts necessary to
complete the whole decommissioning process; acknowledges that considerable amounts are still
needed in this process and deplores the fact that Member States have failed to set up the necessary
mechanisms to ensure this additional funding; reiterates and stresses that the final responsibility for
the safe closure of nuclear power plants lies with the Member State in which the power plant is
situated; notes that failure to comply with this obligation puts Union citizens at risk;
264. Notes that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) commissioned expert
reports from Swedish experts (SKB), among others, which confirmed that GNS fuel elements
containers are safe; notes with concern that this documentation for the fuel element containers,
which has long been available, was not forwarded to the Lithuanian Approval Authority; notes
that as long as the fuel elements are not stored in the containers, the Ignalina power station must
be administered as if it were in operation, which means that the 2 000 or so employees must
continue to be financed by the Union; calls on the Commission to accept no excuses from the
Lithuanian Government which would cause the authorisation and the project to be further delayed;
asks that the Commission set down a rigid timetable and threaten to impose sanctions if it is not
adhered to;
265. Calls on Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia to establish decommissioning plans, including detailed
financial envelopes, explaining how the closure of the nuclear power plants will be financed;
Error rate compared to effectiveness
266. Notes that the Court of Auditors estimated the most likely error rate in a spending area that is mainly
under centralised management at 3 % in 2011, which is more than twice as high as in 2010 with
1,4 %;
Sources of errors
267. Notes that the principle risk of irregularity is that beneficiaries may overstate eligible costs; such a risk
is exacerbated by the complexity of rules for calculating eligible costs; in addition in certain areas the
implementing bodies apply rules differently; ineligible personnel costs and costs linked to commercial
activities represent additional sources of error; regrets that the Commission did not react in time;
268. Finds it unacceptable that the Court of Auditors also found weaknesses in the work of independent
auditors certifying cost claims of beneficiaries: in 25 out of 31 cases where auditors had issued an
unqualified opinion the Court of Auditors detected errors; is worried by such a manifest lack of
professionalism;

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Official Journal of the European Union
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269. Is satisfied, however, that the Court of Auditors considers the ex-post audits to be effective;
270. Deplores the fact that the Court of Auditors found the supervisory and control systems under the
Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) — ICT Policy Support programme (ICT-
PSP) to be ineffective; calls on the Commission to bring these supervisory and control systems up to
speed without delay;
271. Takes note of the Court of Auditors’ conclusions that the payments for the year ended 31 December
2011 for research and other internal policies were affected by material error and that the examined
supervisory and control systems for research and other internal policies were partially effective; regrets
that the Court of Auditors’ report provides no detailed information on the expenditure for the area of
freedom, security and justice;
272. Emphasises the high importance of chapter 18 02 – Solidarity – External borders, return, visa policy
and free movement of people for the security and economy of the Union; calls on the Commission to
improve its budgetary planning;
273. Takes note of the reservations made by the Commission’s Directorate-General for Home Affairs in its
annual activity report of 2011 regarding the reputational risks due to delays in implementing SIS II;
takes note of the financial risk resulting from the residual error rate in the non-audited population of
grants of the financial programmes ‘Prevention, preparedness and consequence management of
terrorism and other security related risks’ and ‘Prevention of and fight against crime’; calls on the
Commission to pursue the corrective measures announced;
Reporting and financial corrections
274. Recognises that the number of participants in the seventh framework programme (FP7) has signifi
cantly increased to almost 20 000 and that inexperience, in combination with a complex set of rules,
could lead to errors; encourages the Commission to continue to provide guidance and feedback to
participants;
275. Finds it incomprehensible that auditors of beneficiaries submit erroneous certificates on the financial
statements; believes that the Commission must focus on giving guidance on the professional qualifi
cations of private auditors and providing additional expertise;
276. Notes the examples given by the Court of Auditors on errors in declarations of personnel and indirect
costs; notes that the Horizon 2020 programme proposal introduced significant simplifications of the
rules for these cost categories; considers that these simplifications are essential if there is to be a
significant reduction in the error rate;
277. Acknowledges that the Commission, when reviewing the ex ante control procedures, undertakes to
strike a balance between early approval and control;
278. Notes furthermore that under the FP7 audit strategy beneficiaries receiving 48 % of the FP7 budget
have been audited;
279. Also takes note of the fact that the Commission uses the simplified extrapolation procedure, based on
flat rates, for corrections, which could speed up the recovery process if the beneficiaries cooperate
fully;
Recommendations
280. Urges the Commission to improve cooperation among all the directorates-general and other bodies
involved, and render the division of labour, decision-making procedures and lines of responsibility
between them more transparent;
281. Fully supports the Court of Auditors’ recommendations
— to raise awareness among beneficiaries and external auditors,
— to familiarise external audit firms with the Commission guidelines, and
— to put in place an audit strategy for the ICT-PSP programme;

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Education and culture
282. Calls on the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) to revise the one-sided
and inadequate financial ratios established in order to evaluate the financial situation of beneficiaries
and to decide upon the level of grant instalments, even jeopardising projects selected by not granting
the usual payment of first instalments and waiting till the project is finished and reported back;
reminds the EACEA that the efficient monitoring and control of projects includes a realistic
assessment of the environment of small and medium enterprises and very small organisations;
283. Is concerned by the significant errors in the underlying transactions by the EACEA in the context of
the Lifelong Learning Programme (2007–2013) that were found through ex-post controls; notes that
these errors are mainly due to the lack of adequate justifying documents from beneficiaries and the
non-respect of eligibility rules; encourages the EACEA to further improve its control systems, to adapt
them to the different kinds of beneficiaries, and to raise awareness of their financial obligations and
controls;
284. Welcomes the improvements to the management and control systems of the National Agencies and
National Authorities and the fact that the error rate for the implementation of the programmes
through National Agencies in 2011 has dropped down to 1 %, significantly lower than in previous
years;
285. Regrets that for the fourth consecutive year, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Communication
still has a reservation in the Annual Activity Report regarding the non-compliance with copyright
legislation despite the action plan adopted in 2009;
286. Notes the successful actions that the Commission has undertaken in the field of sport; nevertheless
calls upon the Commission to be more ambitious with the tools and budget it has, in order to prepare
for the sports programme in 2014;
Administrative and other expenditure
287. Calls on the Commission not to reimburse any more travel costs of advisors to Commissioners whose
work has not produced any tangible findings until an added value of their work can be proven;
288. Notes with concern the finding of the Court of Auditors that in 15 out of 28 audited cases, the
information available in the Office for Administration and Payment of Individual entitlements (PMO)
on the personal and family situation of the staff members was not up to date; recommends that the
Commission follow up the recommendation of the Court of Auditors to request staff to deliver at
appropriate intervals documents confirming their personal situation and that it implements a system
for the timely monitoring of these documents;
289. Calls on the Commission to execute an in-depth study on the differences in required qualifications and
the granted privileges, working conditions, allowances, entitled vacation days as well as pay levels for
positions for civil servants and foreign services between Union and Member States located in the same
working place and on the question of whether these differences legitimise the differences in remun
eration of delegated national compared with Union civil servants, taking into account the relevant
applicable tax system by comparing cases with standardised family situations;
290. Notes with concern that the Commission is unable to give a full overview of the costs incurred for
hiring external staff and temporary agents on a yearly basis; requests that those costs are systematically
monitored and requests that they are made publically available;
291. Calls on the Commission to make more use of the available technologies such as teleconferences and
teleworking in order to reduce the costs of buildings and travel; requests the Commission to estimate
possible financial savings which could be achieved with the increased use of these technologies and to
submit the results to Parliament by September 2013;
292. Demands the establishment of an interinstitutional database for studies, so as to avoid multiple
financing of the same issues and to achieve an exchange of results;

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OLAF
293. Has been informed by the OLAF Supervisory Committee about breaches of fundamental rights during
OLAF investigations; is very concerned about the information received in this regard and calls for full
transparency concerning these incidents, regardless of the identity of the person(s) involved;
294. Notes the numerous attempts made to obscure clarification of the allegations made about OLAF’s
investigation methods; regards this as inappropriate and demands full clarification of these allegations;
Eurobarometer
295. Is concerned about the criticisms, mainly voiced in scientific publications, of the Eurobarometer’s
survey methods and calls on the Commission to give a detailed opinion of those criticisms;
Getting results from the Union budget
296. Welcomes the fact that the Court of Auditors presents a report on ‘getting results from the budget’ for
the second time; asks the Court of Auditors to extend its assessment to other services of the
Commission, in particular DG EMPL, DG MARE and to the Secretariat general of the Commission;
Evaluation report on the Union’s finances based on results achieved
297. Notes that the report on the evaluation of the Union’s finances based on the results achieved
(COM(2012) 675) has been adopted by the Commission on 21 November 2012, thus giving both
Parliament and the Court of Auditors only a limited time to review and reply; reiterates its previous
request to the Commission to present the evaluation report in the competent committee and plenary
when the Court of Auditors’ Annual Report is presented;
298. Considers that progress concerning the evaluation report relating to the financial year 2011 has been
made as that report provides certain performance-related information which became available in 2011
for funding under all of the main budget headings and summarises evaluation results on certain
financial programmes for each budget heading;
299. Regrets, nevertheless, that this report provides only summaries of various evaluations relating to
different programmes and covering divergent timeframe, without any comprehensive assessment of
the results achieved in 2011 by the Commission when pursuing its policies;
300. Shares the view of the Court of Auditors ( 1 ) that the evaluation report does not yet provide sufficient
evidence and reliable information on achievements resulting from the policies of the Union and,
therefore, can not fulfil the role which it should play in the context of the discharge procedure;
301. Notes with satisfaction that some evaluations contributed to improve final impact of the programmes;
encourages the Commission to take on board the main findings of those evaluations when shaping its
policies;
302. Calls on the Commission to inform the budgetary authority on an annual basis about the devel
opment of accounts outside the Union budget, including their cash-flow development as well as the
purpose of each account;
303. Points out that the presentation of those summaries by budget headings following the structure of the
2007-2013 Multiannual Financial Framework does not constitute as such an evaluation on Union’s
finances;
304. Considers that the structure of the report consisting of a variety of summary assessments presented,
comprising interim, mid-term, ex post, and final evaluation, makes it difficult to draw consistent
conclusions in terms of performance;
305. Notes that according to the Commission itself, impact evaluations on the programmes usually refer to
funds committed at least three to five years previously; insists on receiving an evaluation focussing on
the performance observed in the preceding financial year, i.e. measures taken to accomplish the
Europe 2020 objectives annually, in full accordance with Article 318 TFEU;
( 1 ) Letter of Mr Caldeira to President Barroso, 20 December 2012 with the reply of the European Court of Auditors to
the second European Commission evaluation report provided for in Article 318 TFEU.

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306. Calls on the Commission to broaden the coverage of its assessment and to develop a real cost
effectiveness approach aiming at measuring the results obtained in pursuing its political objectives
on the basis of the finances and staff devoted to the realisation of those objectives;
307. Calls on the Commission to ensure that evaluations are conducted independently; notes that the
resulting reports should be shared as soon as possible with the relevant committees of Parliament;
308. Asks the Commission to outline in time for the discharge procedure 2012 a new system of
management and performance information including the design and the role of the evaluation
report taking on board the recommendations of Parliament as developed in paragraphs 327 and
328 of this resolution and to present it to the discharge authority;
309. Asks the Commission for this purpose to establish a reliable system of data collection on the
performance to identify outcomes and impacts when they arise ( 1 );
Commission’s management reporting on the achievements of the year
310. Welcomes the improvements noted by the Court of Auditors in the Commission’s self-assessment of
performance in its annual activity reports, in particular as regards reporting on policy achievements in
the first part of those reports;
311. Regrets, nevertheless, that the limited number of general objectives and impact indicators that the
Directions General are requested to define remain affected by weaknesses limiting their usefulness ( 2 );
312. Also regrets that most indicators and targets related to the entire 2007-2013 period do not use
interim indicators or milestones; insists in this context that impact indicators should have deadlines
and quantified targets associated;
313. Is worried that the directorates-general of the Commission did not set nor report on objectives for
operational activities relating to economy including the cost of inputs or efficiency and the relation
between inputs, outputs and results;
314. Reminds the Commission of the rules concerning the rotation of senior staff in the Commission
administration; confirms the need for those requirements in order to create transparency and avoid
taking information hostage; calls on the Commission to implement this principle across the board and
underlines the importance of leading by example and the taking of responsibility at the highest levels;
315. Regrets also that the description of the policy achievements in part 1 of the annual activity reports is
not sufficiently results-oriented and that the Court of Auditors’ examination of management plan and
annual activity reports did not reveal any significant progress in this area;
316. Insists on the need to ensure the consistency between the objectives, indicators and targets foreseen in
the management plan and reported on in the annual activity reports;
317. Insists also on the need to explain why the performance achieved did not meet the relevant objective
or target in the annual activity report;
318. Points out that according to points 10.17 and 10.18 of the Court of Auditors’ Annual Report, the
accuracy of the evaluation performed by DG AGRI and DG REGIO is largely reliant on the quality of
data supplied by the Member States; encourages the Commission services to issue guidelines on data
input and to envisage to provide Member States with incentives to supply high quality performance
data;
319. Notes that according to the annual activity reports of the Commission Secretary-General, the
Directors-General of the Commission have ‘aligned’ the general and specific objectives in their
management plans with the Europe 2020 strategy for Growths and Jobs;
( 1 ) Letter of Mr Caldeira to President Barroso, 20 December 2012 with the reply of the European Court of Auditors to
the second European Commission evaluation report provided for in Article 318 TFEU.
( 2 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual Report 2011, examples in point 10.18 et seq.

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Europe 2020 strategy
320. Reiterates the fact that Europe 2020 ( 1 ), launched by President Barroso in 2010, is the main project of
the Commission, aimed at delivering growth that is smart, sustainable and inclusive; points out that
this strategy is focused on five ambitious goals, measured by quantified targets in the areas of
employment, innovation, education, poverty and climate/energy;
321. Notes that Eurostat is responsible for ensuring the statistical support for the strategy in particular in
producing and supplying the relevant statistical data and ensuring high quality standards for data;
322. Notes that Eurostat again failed to deal properly with sensitive information, for example in the case of
the data on Greece; calls on the Commission to undertake more stringent quality reviews and ensure
that Eurostat guarantees that it will be accurate in its presentation of statistical data; calls for a report
on this matter to be produced by March 2014;
323. Insists on the need to strengthen the credibility of the European statistical system; welcomes the
recommendations made in this regard by the Court of Auditors in its Special Report No 12/2012 to
move ‘towards a system of European Statistics which guarantees professional independence, sufficient
resources and strong supervision including sanctions for cases where quality standards are not
respected’ ( 2 );
324. Underlines that the Union growth and jobs strategy is not based on activities led by each individual
DG but encompasses seven cross-cutting flagships initiatives which are implemented each time by
several directorates-general resulting into challenges concerning coordination and cooperation within
the Commission;
325. Notes that the coordination between the services of the Commission in the framework of the flagship
initiatives has taken various forms of inter services consultation, sometimes informal ones ( 3 ); deplores,
nevertheless, that the nine groups of Commissioners set up by President Barroso in April 2010 met
only on rare occasions ( 4 ), resulting in an insufficient use of this new mode of coordination in 2011;
deplores the fact that no specific mechanism has been installed to ensure a satisfactory coordination of
the implementation of all the flagships initiatives;
326. Regrets that the launching of the Europe 2020 Strategy in 2010 did not coincide with the time frame
of the new programming period 2014-2020 and deplores that this will cause some delay in the
achievement of the strategy, in those cases where the Member States have not managed to adapt their
national and Union funded programmes for sustainable, smart and inclusive growth;
327. Asks all the services of the Commission involved in the Europe 2020 Strategy to define in their
management plan a limited number of simple targets, meeting the requirements of the Court of
Auditors in terms of relevance, comparability and reliability in order to annually measure in their
annual activity reports the performance of the Commission in the achievement of the Strategy;
328. Asks the Commission to fundamentally modify the structure of its evaluation report foreseen by
Article 318 TFEU, distinguishing the internal policies from the external ones and focussing inside the
‘internal policies part’ of this report on the Europe 2020 strategy as being the growth and jobs, the
economic and social policy of the Union; insists that the emphasis should be put on the progress
made in the achievement of the flagships initiatives;
( 1 ) Communication from the Commission of 3 March 2010 entitled ‘Europe 2020 — A strategy for smart, sustainable
and inclusive growth’ (COM(2010) 2020).
( 2 ) Special Report No 12/2012 of the Court of Auditors entitled Did the Commission and Eurostat improve the process
for producing reliable and credible European statistics?, p. 6.
( 3 ) See for instance the replies given by Commissioner Andor to the written questions 46 and 47 in preparation of the
hearing in the Committee on Budgetary Control on 26 November 2012.
( 4 ) In 2011, there were altogether 24 meetings of the 9 dedicated Commissioners groups with 7 meetings of the MFF
group (see replies given by Commissioner Oettinger).

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329. Endorses the main conclusions drawn by the Court of Auditors as regards the results of its audits on
performance:
— in order to produce good results, it is important to clearly identify the needs that the programmes
are intended to fulfil,
— good design (establishing a link between activities, outputs, results and impacts) of both
programmes and of the individual projects within the programmes is essential for sound
financial management,
— in time for the 2012 discharge procedure, the Commission should report on how it intends to
secure the added value of Union spending, in accordance with the principles set out by the Court
of Auditors in point 10.31 of its Annual Report 2011 (scale and effects of the expenditure, trans-
frontier effects, reasonable concentration and selective approach to expenditure outside the Union)
and to develop corresponding, meaningful performance indicators;
330. Notes with satisfaction that the Commission has a system in place to follow-up all recommendations
of the Court of Auditors’ special reports on performance audit (see Special Report No 19/2012 ( 1 ));
requests that the Commission strengthen the follow-up in order to respond in a timely efficient and
effective manner to the recommendations of the Court of Auditors and the discharge authority;
The 2011 special reports of the Court of Auditors
331. Welcomes the fact that its Committee on Budgetary Control drew up separate working documents or
reports on the Court of Auditors’ individual special reports, the findings of which can be consulted in
a separate document ( 2 );
332. Is of the opinion that the political appreciation of findings in the special reports should be an integral
part of the discharge procedure;
333. Welcomes, therefore, the ongoing consultations among its Committee on Budgetary Control, the
Conference of Committee Chairs and the Conference of Presidents with a view to identifying the
most appropriate way of taking the findings of the special reports into consideration, thereby bene
fitting to the fullest from the audit work of the Court of Auditors;
334. Calls on its bodies to find a viable and lasting solution in time for the 2012 discharge procedure.
( 1 ) Special Report No 19/2012 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘2011 report on the follow-up of the European Court of
Auditors’ special reports’.
( 2 ) Texts adopted, P7_TA(2013)0123 (see page 68 of this Official Journal).

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