13 Amendments of Vincenzo SOFO related to 2020/2140(DEC)
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Notes with concern that more than half of EU expenditure in 2019 may be considered as high-risk, including reimbursement-based payments for investments in the areas of cohesion and rural development; notes with concern that the increase in the estimated rate of material error from 4,5 % in 2018 to 4,9 % in 2019 can result in auditors giving an adverse opinion on EU expenditure;
Amendment 12 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Notes the decrease in the estimated level of error in spending on ‘Economic, social and territorial cohesion’ from 5 % in 2018 to 4,4 % in 2019; welcomes this year- on-year improvement, but is disappointed that it has not proved possible to decrease the error rate to the 3 % level recorded in 2017; is concerned that of the 236 transactions examined, 29 errors had not been detected by audit authorities, taking account of the 64 errors previously discovered by audit authorities and corrections applied by programme authorities (worth a total of 334 million euros for both programming periods taken together);
Amendment 20 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4 a. Regrets that ‘Ineligible projects’ made 55% as a main type of error; notes that for five ERDF projects, from the 2014-2020 programming period, aid was granted to beneficiaries or operations that did not meet the eligibility conditions set out in the applicable regulation and multiannual operational programmes;
Amendment 21 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Paragraph 4 b (new)
4 b. Regrets that ‘Infringements of internal market rules’ made 24% as a main type of error (9% - infringements of state aid rules; 15% - serious non- compliance with public procurement rules);
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 c (new)
Paragraph 4 c (new)
4 c. Regrets that ‘Ineligible expenditure’ made 12% as a main type of error;
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 d (new)
Paragraph 4 d (new)
4 d. Finds unacceptable the weaknesses found in the work of several audit authorities covered by ECA sample, which currently limit the reliance that can be placed on that work (the recalculated rate was above the 2 % materiality threshold in nine out of 20 assurance packages for the 2014-2020 period, the Commission adjusted the residual error rates for eight assurance packages to a figure above 2 %);
Amendment 24 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 e (new)
Paragraph 4 e (new)
Amendment 25 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 f (new)
Paragraph 4 f (new)
4 f. Is very concerned about the weaknesses found in the work of several audit authorities covered by the European Court of Auditors' (ECA) sample, which currently limit the reliance that can be placed on that work (the recalculated rate was above the 2 % materiality threshold in nine out of 20 assurance packages for the 2014-2020 period, the Commission adjusted the residual error rates for eight assurance packages to a figure above 2 %); notes that for 120 of the sampled transactions (55 %), the ECA was able to draw conclusions on the basis of its review of the work carried out by the audit authorities; is deeply concerned that ECA identified shortcomings with the scope, quality and/or documentation of that work in 100 transactions (45 %), which required the ECA to carry out once more the corresponding audit procedures;
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 g (new)
Paragraph 4 g (new)
4 g. Notes that 13 of the compliance audits (5 by DG REGIO and 8 by DG EMPL) were final by May 2020, but for half of these audits, therefore, the residual rates were not yet final;
Amendment 34 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Calls on the Commission to: - clarify eligibility conditions (including by defining what is meant by ‘physically completed’ and/or ‘fully implemented’ operations to help Member States to verify that operations comply with Article 65(6) of the CPR and avoid the non-detection of ineligible operations); - take action to increase the reliability of the residual rates reported by audit authorities (analyse the main sources of undetected errors and develop the necessary measures together with audit authorities to improve the reliability of reported residual rates);
Amendment 45 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7 a. Regrets that the delayed timing of a number of evaluations and studies analysing the results of the 2007-2013 period and the early stages of programming and implementation of the 2014-2020 cohesion policy programmes means that lessons learned are too late to have an impact on either the current or following programming periods (the results of the2014-2020 ex-post evaluations, for example, are expected to be available by the end of 2025 as required by the CPR, by then the 2021- 2027 programming period will be in its fifth year and the Commission is likely to be well advanced in preparing its legislative proposals for the post-2027 period);
Amendment 49 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 b (new)
Paragraph 7 b (new)
7 b. Finds the effects of the relatively low levels of implementation in cohesion policy, compared to the rest of EU budget, worrisome; notes that an eventual time lag between the start of the programme, implementation and realisation of outputs and results, together with the fact that the latest data available relates to the end of 2018 in an implementation period lasting until the end of 2023, make it harder at this stage to achieve the objectives;
Amendment 51 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 c (new)
Paragraph 7 c (new)
7 c. Regrets that of 72 indicators in total, only one third of the indicators are on track to meet their targets and that about half of the indicators are not on track; regrets that of 9 indicators linked to the general objectives, only two are on track, meanwhile about one third of the indicators had a mid-term milestone target set for 2018; notes that in total, 40 % of the output indicators are on track, for result and impact indicators, this percentage is 10 %; stresses that of all 10 indicators from the programme statements linked to the objective of supporting the shift towards a low-carbon economy in all sectors, only 1 –‘Number of households with improved energy consumption classification indicator’ – is on track;