Activities of Christofer FJELLNER related to 2011/2201(DEC)
Reports (1)
REPORT 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 PDF (684 KB) DOC (542 KB)
Amendments (33)
Amendment 1 #
Proposal for a decision 1
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Postpones its decision on granting the Commission discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 3 #
Proposal for a decision 1
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Grants the Commission discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 5 #
Proposal for a decision 2
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 7 #
Proposal for a decision 2
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Grants the Director of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 10 #
Proposal for a decision 3
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 12 #
Proposal for a decision 3
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Grants the Director of the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 15 #
Proposal for a decision 4
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. .......Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 17 #
Proposal for a decision 4
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. .......Grants the Director of the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 20 #
Proposal for a decision 5
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. .......Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the European Research Council Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 22 #
Proposal for a decision 5
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. .......Grants the Director of the European Research Council Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 25 #
Proposal for a decision 6
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Research Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 27 #
Proposal for a decision 6
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Grants the Director of the Research Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 30 #
Proposal for a decision 7
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 32 #
Proposal for a decision 7
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Grants the Director of the Trans- European Transport Network Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 36 #
Proposal for a decision 8
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. ......Approves the closure of the accounts of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 59 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Stresses once again that the Commission therefore has the primary responsibility in the management of the Union funds concerned and that, as a consequence, the Commission has the obligation to take measures that reflect the subordinate position of the Member States and that are aimed at ensuring legality and regularity as well as sound financial management;
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Notes the close link between the Commission's ultimate responsibility for implementing the budget and the significance of the discharge procedure; regrets strongly and does not accept the Commission's growing tendency to considstresses that the Commission's final responsibility regarding the implementation of the budget also covers weaknesses in Member States' management as falling outside its responsibilitynd control systems;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 37
Paragraph 37
37. Welcomes in this context the Commission's analysis of the errors reported by the Court of Auditors for the financial years 2006-2009, which highlights for the first time that four ERDF and Cohesion Fund three Member States (Spain, Italy, and the UK and Greece) have contributed to 59 % to the cumulative quantifiable errors identified during this period and that for the ESF four Member States (Spain, Portugal, the UK and Germany) have contributed 67 % to8% of the cumulative quantifiable errors identified during this period in the area of Cohesion policy; notes that for ERDF and Cohesion fund most errors found in Italy came from the regions Calabria, Campania and Puglia and that in Spain a small number of operational programmes in the regions Andalucía, Valencia and Castilla La Manche contributed 75 % to the errors detected in Spain; understands furthermore, that Spain and Italy have also contributed significantly to the error rate for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 98 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 46 – indent 2
Paragraph 46 – indent 2
– decreasadapting the level of pre-financings in the various programmes to a level absolutelyunder centralised management to a level that will ensure the necessary float for the beneficiary to start the project, while also safeguarding the financial interest of the Union;
Amendment 104 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 50 a (new)
Paragraph 50 a (new)
50a. Invites the Commission to provide information on the size of outstanding commitments per Member State as well as on its cooperation with the Member States to identify and address risk areas in relation to absorption and regularity;
Amendment 131 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 63
Paragraph 63
63. Notes that the Court of Auditors applies a common methodology to categorise and quantify public procurement errors in the area of shared managementwo policy areas Agriculture and natural resources and Cohesion, Energy and Transport; deplores the fact that the Commission does not follow a harmonisedfollows different methodologyies in the different areas of shared managementse two areas both of which are furthermore not in line with the Court of Auditor's methodology; is worried that different approaches in shared managementthese areas could undermine the credibility of the control and audit of shared management expenditure; calls therefore on the Commission and the Court of Auditors to harmonise the treatment of public procurement errors in all shared managementthese two policy areas;
Amendment 137 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 71 a (new)
Paragraph 71 a (new)
71a. Invites the Commission to present the Evaluation Report provided for in Article 318 of the TFEU in its competent committee and Plenary at the same time as the Court of Auditors' Annual Report is presented and invites the Court of Auditors to present its observations on the Evaluation Report at these occasions; underlines that the Evaluation Report should be published at a moment of time allowing both the Court of Auditors and Parliament to adequately assess it;
Amendment 138 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 72
Paragraph 72
72. Invites the Commission to present the evaluation report provided for in Article 318 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to its competent committee and Plenary at the same time as the Court of Auditors' Annual Report is presented and repeats its invitation to the Court of Auditors to audit and assess the methodology used by the Commission to produce that evaluation report;Recalls that Article 318 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union requests the Commission to submit "an evaluation report on the Union's finances based on the results achieved"1; notes that the Commission on 17 February 2012 adopted the first evaluation report under Article 318 of the TFEU which relates to the financial year 2010; 1 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 318.
Amendment 139 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 72 a (new)
Paragraph 72 a (new)
72a. Further recalls that Parliament in its resolution on discharge to Commission for the financial year 20091 suggested that: - the Commission should appoint a "performance evaluator" in order to establish clear ownership of the evaluation report (paragraph 199) - a clear and transparent relation between performance indicators, legal/political basis, amount of expenditure and results should be established (paragraph 200) - the Internal Audit Service should audit the methodology used for the production of the report as well as assess the work done (paragraph 200) - key performance indicators used by Commission departments should be publicly available (paragraph 200) 1 OJ L 250, 27.9.2011, p. 33.
Amendment 140 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 72 b (new)
Paragraph 72 b (new)
72b. Regrets that the Commission has not been able to fully address these suggestions in the first Evaluation Report under Article 318 of the TFEU; further notes that the first Evaluation Report is a summary of existing evaluation reports in two policy areas (Education and Culture and Research); believes that the coverage and contents of the first Evaluation Report do not live up to what could be expected of an evaluation report required by the TFEU;
Amendment 141 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 72 c (new)
Paragraph 72 c (new)
72c. Invites the Commission to further develop the content of the Evaluation Report under Article 318 of the TFEU and, in particular, to identify the added value of this Evaluation Report compared to "normal" evaluations carried out under the Financial Regulation (Article 27) and its implementing rules (Article 21);
Amendment 142 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 72 d (new)
Paragraph 72 d (new)
72d. Fully supports the Commission's intention to "work to ensure that there is increased co-ordination, exchange of information and coherence both within the Commission and with Member States on the programming, organisation and use of monitoring and evaluation in the next financial framework"1; 1 COM(2012)0040, p. 16.
Amendment 143 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 72 e (new)
Paragraph 72 e (new)
72e. Welcomes that the Court of Auditors is planning to make observations on the first Evaluation Report produced under Article 318 of the TFEU1; 1 European Court of Auditors' Work Programme 2012, p. 6.
Amendment 152 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 75
Paragraph 75
75. Reads with great concern that audit authorities are only partially effective; is deeply concerned about the fact that audit approaches of the audit authorities differ to such an extent that their results cannot be aggregated to reach an overall opinion by Fund at national level (Annual Report, point 4.41); invites the Commission to explaindisclose how it consolidates such inconsistentthe information received from audit authorities and how the Commission overcomes thisensures consistency in order to provide reliable information to Parliament in its AARs;
Amendment 162 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 82
Paragraph 82
82. Believes that payments are resumed too quickly and cCalls on the Commission to resume payments only if sufficient appropriate audit evidence gathered on the spot proves that weaknesses were remedied in view of avoiding any risk that payments are resumed too quickly;
Amendment 164 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 83
Paragraph 83
83. Notes that DG REGIO resumed 24 % (12 out of the 49 payments interrupted in 201093 all of which had been interrupted in October 20101), of the interrupted payments in December 2010; fearbelieves that resuming payments in December aggravates the imbalance of payments throughout the year which increases the risk of error in managing the payments and limits the time for the Court of Auditors to audit those payments; invites strongly the Commission, therefore, to resume payments in January rather than in December as far as possible; to inform Parliament for which of these 12 cases funding would have been lost according to the n+2/n+3 rule if payments had been resumed in 2011; 1 Annex to the replies to the written questions to Commissioner Johannes Hahn for the hearing on 19 December 2011 in Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control.
Amendment 169 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 88 – indent 1
Paragraph 88 – indent 1
– making net reductions the rule rather than the exception and abolishing the possibility to replace ineligible projects by other possiblydeclare retrospective projects;
Amendment 170 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 88 – indent 2
Paragraph 88 – indent 2
– obliging Member States to recover ineligible expenditure from final beneficiaries as far as possible so that final beneficiaries bear the consequences of ineligible expenditure and not the national taxpayer and forwarding to Parliament information on those recoveries by the Commission if possible;