[ParlTrack]

Motion for a resolution
Heading 1

~~Agricultural and regional policy, subject to political approval~~Priority troubleshooting measures in agricultural and regional policy

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Heading 1 - Subheading 4

~~Grounds for the political reservation.~~deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Heading 1 - Subheading 5

~~in the field of agriculture~~deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Heading 1 - Subheading 6

~~in the field of regional policy~~deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21

21. ~~Observes that~~Calls on the Commission ~~does not~~, on the basis of risk analysis, to conduct ~~enough~~more random sample audits of its own at national audit authorities and final beneficiaries;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24

24. Calls on the Commission to ~~demonstrate without delay that the problems identified~~report on progress in implementing action plans in France and Portugal ~~have been remedied~~;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27

27. Calls on the Commission, in its annual activity reports, to indicate how its own risk analyses have influenced the use of its own audit capacities, which countries were concerned and whether the shortcomings were remedied; ~~calls for more direct audits~~acknowledges, however, that an increase in direct audits by the Commission of random samples taken from national granting authorities and final beneficiaries would excessively increase manning requirements in the Commission and be incompatible with its moves to cut back on costs and staffing;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28

28. Stresses that the guidelines for audits by the Commission itself ought to constitute a self-imposed obligation on the Commission; calls on the Commission already to present them as part of the 2013 budget discharge procedure; calls for clear indications, to this end, of the extent to which Member States and programmes which have attracted attention in the past have been subjected to a special audit approach and the extent to which net financial corrections can be accelerated; stresses that this approach should already be adopted in the impending delegated acts (February 2014);deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31

31. Calls on the legislative authority at the first opportunity to ~~limit in time and in financial terms the option of replacing projects affected by errors with new projects before 15 February of year ‘n+1~~amend the basic legal provisions in such a way that projects affected by errors may only be replaced by the Member State concerned with new projects before 15 February of year ‘n+1 if the error was identified by its management and control authorities;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32

32. Calls on the Court of Auditors to make more use of performance audits to compare expenditure programmes in a number of countries; calls once again for special country reports from the Court for Member States which are particularly prone to error (with federal administrative structures) and which have attracted particular attention (through high error rates);deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 a (new)

32a. Stresses that it is the responsibility the Court of Auditors under the Treaty to examine the financial management of the Commission and not the individual Member States; calls on the Commission therefore to concentrate on those Member States which are vulnerable or conspicuous in this respect;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33

~~33. Regards the newly~~ delected ~~Parliament as being in a position to investigate the reservations in the fields of agriculture and regional policy and lift them if appropriate progress is made;~~

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40

40. Respects the Court’s method of taking the random sample with different priority countries and programmes each year for the ‘representative cross-section’; calls, however, in addition, for risk-based and programme-specific country reports;deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 49

49. Welcomes the fact that the Court of Auditors decided in 2012 to treat serious procurement errors made by all Union institutions and bodies as quantifiable, as it already did for the Member States and international organisations; notes that the Court of Auditors has not backdated its approach to cover procurement activities by the Union institutions and bodies which took place before 2011;deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 49 a (new)

49a. Urges the Court, together with the Commission, to adopt a jointly agreed method of counting errors, given that a divergent approach simply obscures the real impact of an error on the success of a project and hampers any realistic assessment thereof;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 52 a (new)

52a. Refers to the Commission's EU anti- corruption report (COM (2014)0038), which identifies public procurement as being particularly exposed to corruption; endorses, in this connection, calls for higher standards of integrity and improved control mechanisms in a number of Member States;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 58

58. Notes that the 2012 accounts record a EUR 1.8 billion financial correction on the 2000-2006 use of cohesion policy funds in Spain, which corresponds to 49 % of the total corrections in 2012; ~~regrets that in accordance with current rules, authorities in Spain were entitled to further funding amounting to EUR 1 390 million;~~

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 63

63. Deplores the fact that the term ‘amounts at risk’ is not defined within the ‘Synthesis of the Commission’s management achievements in 2012’ (Synthesis Report) adopted by the Commission on 5 June 2013 and that such amounts are not calculated on a consistent basis by the various directorates-general; calls on the Commission to develop a joint approach among the directorates-general with regard to establishing amounts at risk;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 72

72. Notes that the lack of reliability of the first-level checks performed by some Member States undermines the credibility of the annual activity reports drafted by the Commission services and the Synthesis Report adopted by the Commission, as they are partially based on the results of the checks performed by the national authorities; ~~reiterates, consequently, its previous demand that the Commission establish reliable and objective annual activity reports;~~

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 80

80. Expresses its concern about the weaknesses of the Value Added Tax (VAT) systems of the Member States; refers in this connection to the findings of a study1 which estimated losses of VAT revenue in 2011 due to infringements or failure to collect the tax at EUR 193 bn for public finances in the EU Member States; notes that this is equivalent to 18 % of the theoretical VAT revenue; wishes therefore to be informed what measures the Commission has taken to remove existing reservations relating to the national VAT system of the Member States, which may date from as long ago as the 1990s; __________________ 1 Study to quantify and analyse the VAT Gap in the EU-27 Member States – Final Report (TAXUD/2012//EN/316) http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxati on/vat/key_documents/reports_published/i ndex_en.htm

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128

~~128. Stresses that this assertion makes it difficult for the budgetary authority to reach objective conclusions as to whether or not to grant the discharge;~~deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 129 a (new)

129a. Supports the recommendations and good practices to reduce errors by addressing gold-plating as suggested in the Parliament's study on "Gold-Plating in the EAFRD: To what extent do national rules unnecessarily add to complexity and, as a result, increase the risk of errors?"; notes that there are forms of gold-plating where benefits outweigh the costs and where regulation is justified ('good' gold-plating practices), whereas numerous other practices of gold-plating appear to be disproportionate and costs outweigh the benefits ('bad' gold-plating practices); demands that the latter gold-plating forms be addressed;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 129 b (new)

129b. Requests in this respect the immediate implementation of the so- called "quick wins" to assess potential costs together with expected policy benefits when introducing ambitious requirements and commitments, to tackle problematic administrative and procedural requirements, as well as to avoid ambiguous and unclear requirements;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 129 c (new)

129c. Asks also for structural changes leading to long-term solutions such as a permanent knowledge-sharing platform among managing authorities and paying agencies across the Union so that EAFRD specific bodies can learn by examples and best practices when discussing areas of ambiguity as well as overly complex requirements and controls; demands in this respect the accessibility to this platform in all Member States;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 136

136. For this reason, reserves its position as regards the regularity of transactions and the effectiveness of systems in the common agricultural policy (direct payments and rural development); will lift this reservation only on the basis of a commitment to fully protect the budget of the European Union given by the relevant Commissioners-designate during the parliamentary hearing preceding their appointment as Members of the Commission in 2014 and on condition that convincing plans for doing so are presented;deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 140

140. Considers it unacceptable that, for years, errors of the same kind continue to be identified, often in the same Member States; calls on the Commission to step up monitoring of national and regional management and control systems in the light of this finding, and to ease monitoring in countries where management and control systems have proved reliable;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153

153. ~~Regrets, however, that, under the new ERDF Regulation too,~~Stresses that Member States may only replace projects affected by errors which were identified in year ‘n’ with new projects, eliminating an essential incentive for the careful use of appropriations; considers that this arrangement should be restricted at the earliest opportunity and fundamentally re-regulated by 2020 at the latest if the error was detected by their own management and control systems; considers that this provides a crucial incentive for optimising Member States' management and control systems;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 155 a (new)

155a. Calls, in light of the high levels of public procurement errors in cohesion policy and with regard to the Court of Auditor's seminar on EU public procurement in January 2014, for a stronger and immediate implementation of existing rules in this area in the Member States; calls furthermore for a better coordination of public procurement rules at the level of all stakeholders and a simplification and harmonisation of rules and financial corrections;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 157

157. Reserves its final judgment of this policy sector in the light of the above considerations, particularly for the following reasons: (a) it is not clear that the audit authorities of some Member States take their auditing task seriously and that they make lasting improvements to supervisory and control systems; (b) it is not clear that the Commission, on the basis of an independent audit procedure, is performing more audits of final beneficiaries and granting authorities in year ‘n’ in those Member States which have attracted attention because of shortcomings in administrative and audit systems in year ‘n-1’; (c) it is not clear that the Commission itself audits all operational programmes at least once in the course of a programming period; (d) the time limits in adversarial procedures are too long, and (e) it is uncertain whether the operational application of the term ‘serious deficiencies’ will lead to any improvement; Calls on the newly elected Parliament to raise the issue of the weaknesses in the fields of agricultural and regional policy indicated here at the hearings of the designated members of the new Commission and to demand appropriate pledges in order to improve protection of the EU budget;deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 158

158. ~~Regards~~Calls on the newly elected Parliament ~~as being in a position to investigate the reservations in the fields of agriculture and regional policy and lift them if appropriate progress is mad~~to establish action to remedy the weaknesses detected in the fields of agriculture and regional policy as urgent tasks in the new European Commission's work programme;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 188

188. Welcomes the performance audits produced by the European Court of Auditors, in particular in its special reports concerning the European Union’'s aid to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt and Palestine, as they assess whether the management of the Commission accords with the principles of efficiency, effectiveness and economy; suggests, in light of these reports, that the Commission and the Court of Auditors work closely together to further develop both measurable indicators and the methodology of performance audits, regarding Union funded projects with a high political nature, such as those oriented towards strengthening the respect for human rights, the rule of law and democracy, where a decision to continue or discontinue a project does not only depend on actual results in a given time frame;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 202

202. Strongly deplores the fact that OLAF’s investigation of the accusations has been seriously flawed, according to an analysis by the OLAF Supervisory Committee, and that OLAF refuses to explain matters and is also not being called to account in this respect;deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Jens GEIER

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 204

204. Calls for complete clarification and for full and prompt cooperation by the Commission with the courts in Belgium and Malta in the Dalli case and for an independent inquiry into the methods used by OLAF in this case; asks all those who consider themselves to have been adversely affected by OLAF's actions to lodge a complaint against OLAF, so that the methods used by OLAF in this case can be examined in court as soon as possible;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

33 Amendments of Jens GEIER related to 2013/2195(DEC)

ParlTrack - 2011-2024