26 Amendments of Tomáš ZDECHOVSKÝ related to 2021/2054(INL)
Amendment 3 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
B a. notes that the number of off- budget instruments continues to grow, considers that the instruments such as Next Generation EU underlie the direct management of the Commission; highlights that the Parliament needs to fulfil its mandate in decision-making, scrutiny and discharge functions; requests that the Financial Regulation is updated, allowing the Parliament to fulfil its mandate in controlling these new mechanisms; stresses that this is particularly important in the context the digitalisation of the European reporting, monitoring and audit;
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas for companies the current systems in most cases do not contain information about the owner or owners of the companies, and their beneficial owners;
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital L
Recital L
L. whereas some companies and natural persons operate in more than one Member State and company structures can be highly complex and opaque;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital N
Recital N
N. whereas all these factors illustrate that there is an urgent need to create a standardised Union-wide interoperable digital system for Member States‘ implementing authorities to report about the beneficiaries of CAP and structural and cohesion funds in order to enable national control and audit authorities, Union institutions and the public to obtainbodies, the ECA, OLAF and EPPO to obtain complete and reliable information about the identity of final beneficiaries, how much they receive and from which funds;
Amendment 19 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital N a (new)
Recital N a (new)
N a. whereas the public should have access to information on the direct and final beneficiaries of EU funds to the greatest extend possible in line with applicable data protection rules and the standing jurisprudence of the CJEU on the publication of data on beneficiaries of EU funds;
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital S
Recital S
S. whereas public entities are often the direct recipients of money from CAP or structural funds which is then paid to other recipients as part of a specific program implementation; whereas in such situations the public entity should also be obliged to report about who the final recipients of the money have been; whereas the digital system should include interoperability inter alia with internal systems of relevant national bodies and authorities, managementand paying authorities, as well as national public procurement and tender databases;
Amendment 27 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital T
Recital T
T. whereas such an interoperable system should respect GDPR rules and reasonable “de minimis rules” for the publication of data;
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital V
Recital V
V. whereas rules on transparencyhe publication of data concerning beneficiaries of funds from shared management policies should as far as possible be harmonised with rules concerning beneficiaries of funds in direct management;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Is of the firm opinion that the most efficient and effective way to ensurefurther enhanced protection of Union finances and enable further transparenceven closer scrutiny is to create an integrated, interoperable and harmonised system to collect, monitor and analyse information about final beneficiaries in all Member States.;
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Considers that transparency about the implementation of the rules and accordingly about the identity of recipients of money from different funds and programmes and about the amounts they receive is an essential part of ensuring trust in the financial management of Union funds; acknowledges that the publication of data on beneficiaries should include “de minimis” thresholds in line with applicable data protection rules and the standing jurisprudence of the CJEU;
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Underlines that transparency about final beneficiaries will ensure that auditing, control and discharge authorities in national administrations, the Commission, the Council and the Parliament will have much better and more accurate possibilities to ensure that money is being spent efficiently according to rules and policy ambitions; emphasises that also the ECA, OLAF and EPPO will be able to fulfil their respective responsibilities with greater efficiency and accuracy if given full access to complete and reliable information;
Amendment 43 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Underlines furthermore, that transparencya more coherent and EU wide publication of data about final beneficiaries will give journalists, civil society representatives and the general public much better possibilities to raise legitimate questions and concerns and thereby to expose potential cases of misuse or fraud of Union funds;
Amendment 44 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Considers that the present situation where it is impossible to get a reasonably complete picture about who is receiving how much from especially shared management funds, including particularly the lacking possibility to aggregate individual amounts concerning the same direct and/or final beneficiary and/or beneficial owner, is unacceptable and needs to be changed as soon as possible to increase the efficiency of Union funds;
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Stresses that the revision should ensure that it is possible to identify final beneficiaries of funds and therefore the revision should, among other things, contain an obligation for reporting systems to include detailed information about the type of beneficiary and unique identif; considers that compulsory information items collected for audit and control purposes need to include as a minimum the registration number of legal entities, national identification number for natural persons, an indication of the type of beneficiary, sub-contractors, beneficial owners, whether the beneficiary also receives State aid and the beneficiary’s contact information; underlines that access to sensitive data through the interoperable digital reporting and monitoring system must be limited to responsible nationaland European authorities, institutions and bodiers for all direct beneficiarieudit, control and discharge purposes and strictly in line with data protection requirements;
Amendment 50 #
15. Underlines that the revision should further ensure that when the direct recipient of Union funds is a company it should be ensured that it is possible to identify the beneficial owners of that company;
Amendment 53 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Underlines that in situations where the direct recipient is a company which is owned by another company, it should be ensured that it is possible to identify the beneficial owners of the second company also, and that this obligation should continue to apply no matter how many companies are involved;
Amendment 54 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Notes that this obligation to identify the beneficial owner should as a minimum apply whenever any natural or legal person owns more than 310% of the company in question; emphasises that company shares belonging to relatives should be aggregated and counted as one;
Amendment 56 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Notes that the obligation of being able to identify the beneficial owners of the company should also apply when a company is located in a non-Union country;
Amendment 57 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Notes that the revision of the Financial Regulation should also ensure that public entities, which are the direct recipients of Union funds, should be obliged to report concerning the final beneficiaries of the funds, i.e. if it is natural or legal persons other than the public entity itself; underlines the necessity for the digital system to include interoperability with internal systems of relevant national bodies and authorities, management and paying authorities, as well as national public procurement and tender databases;
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Stresses that such a system shall be based on standardised measures to collect, compare and aggregate information and figures on the direct and final recipients and beneficiaries of Union funding, for the purposes of control and audit, audit and discharge;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Requests that the system is designed in such a way that it automatically links to databases containing updated information about company ownership as well as interoperability with internal systems of relevant national bodies and authorities, management and paying authorities, as well as national public procurement and tender databases;;
Amendment 68 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30
Paragraph 30
30. Underlines that such a system should respect the Union data protection rules and standing jurisprudence of the CJEU; notes that there might bare differences between the level of detail in information which is made available for the public in general and which is available for audit, control and discharge authoritiesneeds to be collected, aggregated and stored for audit, control and discharge purposes and which can be made available for the public in general; stresses that audit, control and discharge authorities should always havemust have full access to all available information while the publication of data may be restricted by applicable data protection requirements and “de minimis” thresholds;
Amendment 73 #
Motion for a resolution
Annex I – paragraph 10 – point 3
Annex I – paragraph 10 – point 3
(3) To enhance the protection of the Union budget, the Commission should make available an integrated and interoperable information and monitoring system, including a single data-mining and risk-scoring tool, to access, store, aggregate and analyse the aforementioned data with a view to a generalised mandatory application by Member States. That system should ensure efficient checks on conflicts of interests, irregularities, issues of double funding, and any misuse of the funds. The Commission, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and other Union investigative and control bodies should have the necessary access to that data in order to exercise their supervisory functions in relation to the controls and audits that are to be carried out by the Member States in the first place to detect irregularities and conduct administrative investigations into the misuse of the Union funding concerned, and to get a precise overview of its distribution.;
Amendment 75 #
Motion for a resolution
Annex I – paragraph 12 – point 2 – point b – paragraph 1 – introductory part
Annex I – paragraph 12 – point 2 – point b – paragraph 1 – introductory part
‘The following non-sensitive information shall be published, having due regard for the requirements of confidentiality and security, in particular the protection of personal data:;
Amendment 76 #
Motion for a resolution
Annex I – paragraph 12 – point 4 – paragraph 2 – point 2 a (new)
Annex I – paragraph 12 – point 4 – paragraph 2 – point 2 a (new)
Amendment 77 #
Motion for a resolution
Annex I – paragraph 12 – point 4 – paragraph 2 – point 3
Annex I – paragraph 12 – point 4 – paragraph 2 – point 3
3. The Commission, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the Court of Auditors and, in respect of those Member States participating in enhanced cooperation pursuant to Council Regulation (EU) 2017/1939, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), as well as other Union investigative and control bodies, including the discharge authority, shall be granted access to the information contained in the system referred to in paragraph 1 where necessary for the exercise of their functions.