20 Amendments of Arnaud DANJEAN related to 2020/2140(DEC)
Amendment 21 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Highlights, with regard to the implementation of the Union budget, the importance of complying with the principle of sound financial management as enshrined in Article 317 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU); emphasises that respect for the rule of law is among the most essential preconditions for sound financial management including the efficient and effective allocation and management of European funds; strongly welcomes in that regard the adoption of Regulation 2020/2092 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2020 on a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget; welcomes that the Commission has started its work on guidelines and emphatically reminds that this Regulation is applicable from 1 January 2020; expects the Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties, to ensure that the Regulation is fully applicable from the date agreed by the co-legislators and reminds that annulment of the Regulation or part of it is only possible by the CJEU;
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1 a. Deplores that deficiencies in the validity and comparability of data and reporting technologies with varying degrees of digitalisation in the Member States continue to severely hamper a comprehensive overview over the distribution of EU funds and their efficient control; regrets that the detection of misuse, fraud and embezzlement of EU funds is mostly limited to incidental discoveries by the Commission and the European Court of Auditors (ECA) during their sample-based audits or investigations by OLAF;
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 b (new)
Paragraph 1 b (new)
1 b. Recalls Parliament’s call on the Commission to propose regulation for the establishment of an interoperable IT system allowing for uniform and standardised reporting in a timely manner by Member State’s authorities in the area of shared management, particularly regarding CAP and cohesion funds, for an earlier detection of systemic errors and misuse as expressed in the discharge report for the Commission for the financial year 2018;
Amendment 31 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 c (new)
Paragraph 1 c (new)
1 c. Emphasises that such an interoperable IT system would not only allow for an earlier and more efficient detection of misuse, fraud, misappropriations, conflicts of interest, double-funding and other systemic problems but would also allow for a comprehensive overview of the true distribution of EU funds and potentially unintended concentrations in the hands of few oligarchic or even criminal ultimate beneficiaries; underlines that the lack of information about the ownership structures and beneficial owners of companies and groups of companies significantly contributes to the opaqueness of the current distribution of funds; emphasises again the crucial importance of comprehensive, reliable and comparable data for the efficient, effective and timely control of European spending and the protection of European tax-payers’ money;
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 d (new)
Paragraph 1 d (new)
1 d. Underlines the benefits such an interoperable and digital system would entail for the Member States’ authorities with regard to the control and overview of national Parliaments and governments over the allocation, management and distribution of national tax-payer’s money in the form of European funds; emphasises that the digitalisation of the European reporting, monitoring and audit is overdue and indispensable given the cross-border nature of misuse, fraud, misappropriations, conflicts of interest, double-funding and other systemic problems;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 e (new)
Paragraph 1 e (new)
1 e. Reiterates its urgent call on the Commission to prioritise a proposal for a regulation to establish such a reporting and monitoring IT system that would provide a comprehensive overview over the true distribution of EU funds; acknowledges proposals made by the Parliament and the Commission during the negotiations about the MFF 2021- 2027, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the Common Provisions Regulation (CPR) and the CAP; deplores the Council’s resistance and refusal to constructively engage in the negotiations for viable compromises; regrets that different rules and reporting requirements were agreed in the different legislations; urges the Commission to propose a suitable provision to be included in the Financial Regulation without undue delay;
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 g (new)
Paragraph 1 g (new)
1 g. Recalls that the discharge report 2018 called on the Commission to provide the discharge authority with a list of the 50 largest individual recipients (natural persons as beneficial owners of a company or of several companies) per Member State as well as a list of the 50 largest recipients (natural persons and legal persons as well as natural persons as owners of companies) of Union-subsidies aggregated across all Member States; acknowledges repeated attempts by the Commission to compile such a list by requesting information from the Member States; deplores that the Commission until the date of this resolution has not been able to provide the list as requested due to a lack of complete, reliable and comparable data provided by the Member States; underlines that this illustrates and emphasises the pressing need for a digital, interoperable reporting and monitoring system for the funds under shared management;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5 a. Is concerned by the Court’s repeated findings that the work of some national audit authorities or certifying bodies is considered too error-prone and therefore unreliable; regrets that the Court cannot include an analysis for the underlying reasons for these persisting weaknesses in its work; regrets that neither the Commission could contribute meaningful insights on the reasons and any country-specific differences between Member States’ authorities; regrets that this lack of information on the underlying reasons for these persisting, systemic weaknesses in certain national audit authorities hinders efficiently and effectively addressing and solving these problems; calls on the Commission to conduct a thorough analysis of the underlying reasons and structural problems causing the persisting systemic weaknesses identified by the Court; asks the Commission to also include observations on best practice and based on this analysis address clear, practical and readily implementable horizontal as well as country-specific recommendations to the national authorities as described in greater detail in the specific chapters of this resolution;
Amendment 160 #
27 a. Underlines that the performance of EU funds and policies is very difficult to measure and requires different definitions and targeted indicators for the various spending areas and funds; agrees with the findings of the Court that overall indicators need to be further improved and a better balance found between input and output, and result and impact indicators;
Amendment 230 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 61 a (new)
Paragraph 61 a (new)
61 a. Regrets that complex application rules and lengthy procedures are major hurdles in particular for SMEs, start-ups and first-time applicant that lack significant resources and experience with these application procedures;
Amendment 237 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 65
Paragraph 65
65. Underlines that SMEs are more error-prone than other beneficiaries since more than half the quantifiable errors found (17 out of 28) involved funding for private beneficiaries, even though the transactions in question accounted for just 42 (32 %) of the 130 transactions in the sample (SMEs made up 12 % of the sample but accounted for 21 % of the quantifiable errors); underlines that this reflects their lack of resources and familiarity with the complex eligibility rules;
Amendment 245 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 68 – indent -1 (new)
Paragraph 68 – indent -1 (new)
-1 calls on the Commission to further simplify rules and procedures, provide practical and pragmatic guidance and improve its assistance for SMEs, start-ups and other first-time applicants to level the playing field among applicants with varying level of experience and resources;
Amendment 530 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128 a (new)
Paragraph 128 a (new)
Amendment 532 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128 b (new)
Paragraph 128 b (new)
128 b. Reiterates its call for the introduction of maximum amounts of payments that one natural person can receive from the first and second pillar of the CAP; is of the opinion that maximum amounts that are defined for natural persons are much harder to circumvent than caps for legal persons; reminds that beneficiaries can artificially split up their companies or create additional companies that all can receive the maximum amount of funding, thereby circumventing a cap defined per legal person; welcomes the intentions of the proposal to count all companies belonging to the same group as one beneficiary, but is of the opinion that this is insufficient: opaque and highly complex company structures often involving entities in several Member States and/or third countries make it very difficult to ensure that all companies belonging to the same group are identified as such and in fact treated as one beneficiary;
Amendment 533 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128 c (new)
Paragraph 128 c (new)
128 c. Repeats its concern that CAP subsidies continue to incentivise land- grabbing by criminal and oligarchic structures; reiterates its urgent call on the Commission to establish a complaint mechanism for farmers and SMEs faced with land-grabbing, severe misconduct by national authorities, irregular or biased treatment in tenders or the distribution of subsidies, pressure or intimidation from criminal structures, organised crime or oligarchic structures, or another severe infringement oft heir fundamental rights to lodge a complaint directly with the Commission; welcomes that such a complaint mechanism has been proposed for the new CAP regulation;
Amendment 538 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128 g (new)
Paragraph 128 g (new)
128 g. Calls on the Commission to: - do its utmost in the negotiations on the CAP to ensure that a complaint mechanism for farmers and SMEs will become part of the new CAP regulation; - do its utmost in the negotiations on the CAP to ensure that maximum amounts of payments receivable from the first and second pillar of the CAP are defined per natural person; - keep the discharge authority informed on any new developments regarding the Slovak Agricultural Paying Agency, including specific information on financial corrections; - calls on the Commission to increase efforts to prevent and detect fraud and frequently update its analysis of CAP fraud risks more often and perform an analysis of Member States' prevention measures as a matter of priority;
Amendment 619 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 148 a (new)
Paragraph 148 a (new)
148 a. Notes with astonishment the Commission’s reaction to allegations of fundamental rights concerns at Frontex; is concerned that the communication and cooperation between the Commission and Frontex seems stagnant; calls on the Commission to provide Frontex with clear legal guidance to ensure appropriate and lawful procedures for critical situations at external (sea) borders given the complex geopolitical challenges of these operations;
Amendment 658 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161
Paragraph 161
161. Points out that after the judgement of the General Court of the Union in December 2015 on Western Sahara, Morocco suspended political dialogue covering all Union external policies such as development policy, trade, foreign and security policy from December 2015 until January 2019; notes the Commission’s comments to Special Report 09/2019 that as "policy dialogue was never suspended during the period of difficult political relations between the EU and Morocco, the Commission considers there were no grounds to develop an alternative strategy";
Amendment 659 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161 a (new)
Paragraph 161 a (new)
161 a. Underlines that Morocco is a long- standing and strategic partner and neighbour of the EU with fruitful cooperation leading to positive results;
Amendment 701 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 170 a (new)
Paragraph 170 a (new)
170 a. reiterates its request to the Commission to execute fully and without any further delay the judgement of the Court of Justice (31/1/2019) regarding International Management Group (IMG); urges the Commission to consider again IMG as a suitable contractor for projects in crisis situation countries, where this organisation has proven its efficiency in managing reconstruction and assistance programs financed by European entities and Member States over more than 20 years.