EN Official Journal of the European Union L 252/66

RESOLUTION (EU, Euratom) 2017/1608 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

of 27 April 2017

on the Court of Auditors' special reports in the context of the 2015 Commission discharge

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT,

— having regard to the special reports of the Court of Auditors drawn up pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 287(4) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

— having regard to the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015 (1),

— having regard to the consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for the financial year 2015 (COM(2016) 475 — C8-0338/2016) (2),

— having regard to the Court of Auditors' annual report on the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2015, together with the institutions' replies (3),

— having regard to the statement of assurance (4) as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions provided by the Court of Auditors for the financial year 2015, pursuant to Article 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

— having regard to its decision of 27 April 2017 on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, Section III — Commission (5), and to its resolution with observations that forms an integral part of that decision,

— having regard to the Council's recommendation of 21 February 2017 on discharge to be given to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2015 (05876/2017 — C8-0037/2017),

— having regard to Articles 317, 318 and 319 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

— having regard to Article 106a of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community,

— having regard to Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union and repealing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 (6) and in particular Articles 62, 164, 165 and 166 thereof,

— having regard to Rule 93 of and Annex IV to its Rules of Procedure,

— having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control (A8-0160/2017),

A. whereas, under Article 17(1) of the Treaty on European Union, the Commission is to execute the budget and manage programmes and, pursuant to Article 317 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, is to implement the budget in cooperation with the Member States, on its own responsibility, having regard to the principles of sound financial management;

B. whereas the special reports of the Court of Auditors provide information on issues of concern related to the implementation of funds, and are thus useful for Parliament in its role as discharge authority;

C. whereas its observations on the special reports of the Court of Auditors form an integral part of Parliament's aforementioned decision of 27 April 2017 on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, Section III — Commission;

Part I — Special Report No 18/2015 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Financial assistance provided to Member States in difficulties’

1. Takes note of the findings and recommendations of the Court of Auditor's (the ‘Court’) Special Report;

2. Welcomes the first special report of the Court on economic governance in the Union and looks forward to the upcoming reports that will be published in the coming year;

3. Regrets that the Court has not included in this report all the Member States that received financial assistance since the beginning of the financial crisis, including the programme for Greece in order to facilitate a comparison;

4. Welcomes however that the Court will produce a separate special report on Greece; calls on the Court to compare the results of both special reports and in particular to address the suggestions of the Parliament to the report on Greece, including medium and long term results (i.e. present debate on possible debt-relief);

5. Encourages the Court to further reinforce its own human resources and expertise in this area to improve the quality of its work; calls on the Court in the meanwhile to take fully into consideration the external expertise reports requested by the Court as a background basis for the audit;

6. Draws attention to the fact that the Court limited the audit to the very short term and concrete scenario of financial assistance as decided by the Council without taking into consideration other potential solutions to the fiscal imbalances that were already part of public and academic debate, such as the mutualisation of sovereign debt or debt relief;

7. Regrets that the report limits its focus to the management of the assistance but does not analyse, nor question, the programme's content and the conditions negotiated for financial assistance;

8. Takes note that the specific measures taken at the Union political level and the main features of the programmes have only been described in the special report; encourages the Court to analyse if the measures adopted were appropriate to the objectives of the programmes and the way they have interacted with the wider policy framework and long term objectives, including the Europe 2020 Strategy;

9. Takes note that the objectives of the financial assistance programmes were for the assisted countries to return to financial markets, achieve sustainable public finances, and return to growth and reduce unemployment; regrets that the Court's findings have not fully analysed the results of the programme against these objectives;

10. Notes that the Court primarily focused its conclusions on the Commission as the manager of the financial assistance, but considers that for a better understanding, further attention should have been paid to the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank which initially supported the Commission in the preparation and monitoring of the programmes;

11. Shares the view of the Commission that the role of the Council and other partners has been underestimated in the establishment and management of the programme; asks the Court and Commission to analyse the relevance of the measures adopted by the Council, the role of the European Central Bank and whether these were appropriate to meet the objectives of the programme and contributed to the Union's objectives, including phasing out the economic crisis, more jobs and growth;

12. Regrets that the partners did not always share all available information with the Commission, which led to inconsistent approaches by the negotiating team; urges the Commission to set up formal agreements with its partners in order to have full access to all information available in due time and thus avoid such problems in the future;

13. Highlights that some of the reforms indicated in the programmes (i.e. reform of labour markets) can only lead to results in competitiveness in the very long term, while assistance programmes seek mainly more immediate, short-term results;

14. Notes that the programmes have been mainly based on the side of expenditure (reforms on labour markets, pension and unemployment schemes, reduction of local entities etc.) as well as cuts to public programmes; understands that these cuts have been made in order to reform the financial markets of the assisted countries;

15. Urges the Council to carefully review the toolbox and set of measures available for financial assistance in future programmes in order to reduce the impact on the population, the non-desired effect on internal demand and the socialisation of the costs of the crisis;

16. Highlights that financial assistance provided to the Member States in difficulties took the form of loans borrowed on the capital markets using the Union budget as a guarantee; considers that the role of the Parliament as budgetary authority in these programmes has been undermined, thus further reducing the democratic legitimacy of the financial assistance provided;

17. Urges the Commission to increase the level of Parliament's involvement in the framework of financial assistance when the Union budget it is at stake;

18. Considers it important to study the role of the European Central Bank in indirectly helping Member States to meet their objectives and on the wider support to the financial architecture of the Union during the time of the financial programmes;

19. Considers that at the onset of the crisis it was difficult to have predicted some abrupt imbalances with devastating effects in some Member States; highlights the difficulty of predicting the magnitude and nature of the 2007-2008 global financial crises which was unprecedented;

20. Shares the Court's view that the attention paid to the pre-crisis surveillance legal framework was not adequate in identifying the risk in the underlying fiscal positions in times of severe economic crisis;

21. Welcomes the approval by the legislators of the ‘six’ and ‘two’ pack introduced as a result of the financial crisis which addressed the surveillance weakness that the crisis revealed; considers however that the reform of the Union economic governance framework in the past years has not lead to a complete phase-out of the crisis and calls on the Commission to further analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the new framework compared to other similar economies (i.e. US, Japan and other OECD countries) and to propose new reforms, if necessary;

22. Calls on the Commission to follow the Court's recommendation to further improve the quality of its macroeconomic and fiscal forecasts;

23. Takes note of the Court's conclusion that the Commission achieved in difficult time constraints and limited experience ex novo duties to manage the financial assistance programmes; highlights the Court's conclusion that this was an achievement taking into consideration the circumstances;

24. Welcomes the decision to allow the management of financial assistance to be the responsibility of the Commission instead of other financial partners, allowing tailored assistance that takes into consideration particularities and ownership of the Member States;

25. Is of the opinion that while Member States should be treated equally, the flexibility to tailor and adjust programmes and reforms to particular national circumstances is also necessary; considers that for future programmes of the Commission and reports of the Court, it should be necessary to identify and differentiate the implementation of strictly Union measures from the national conjectural agendas;

26. Takes note of the Court's comment as regards the Commission's difficulties in keeping track of the information and that its processes were not geared towards retrospective evaluation of the decisions taken;

27. Underlines that in the early phase of the programmes, the Commission was operating under severe time and political pressure in the face of uncertain risks that challenged the stability of the whole financial system with unpredictable consequences in the economy;

28. Considers that, whilst not having prior experience on financial assistance, the Commission ‘learnt by doing’ and managed to properly put in place relatively quickly those programmes and improved its management for the later ones;

29. Shares the Court's recommendations that the Commission should further analyse the key aspects of the countries' adjustments, but also should compare economic forecasts including housing market, public and private national debts; urges all Member States to provide systematically and regularly the appropriate data to the Commission;

30. Considers that the timeframe since the launch of the first Union programme until the end of the Court's analysis should give the opportunity to include improved recommendations both on the improvements and the results of the programme to future programmes, as a result of the inter-institutional and adversarial dialogue between the Court and the Commission;

31. Considers that, on grounds of transparency, better information and communication to citizens, the replies of the Commission and the opinion of the Court should be presented in a double column to allow comparison of views as is done for the annual report of the Court;

32. Taking into account the sensitivity of these new reports on Union financial governance, recommends that the press releases and other communication documents should reflect thoroughly the findings and recommendations of the Court;

Part II — Special Report No 19/2015 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘More attention to results needed to improve the delivery of technical assistance to Greece’

33. Notes that at the time this resolution was being drafted, the Commission had already presented its proposal for the establishment of the Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP); welcomes the fact that the Commission has evidently taken the recommendations from the Court into consideration and hopes the SRSP will emerge as a strong tool for technical assistance based on the lessons learned from the Task Force on Greece;

34. Is concerned that the ad-hoc, rapid set-up of the task force caused some of its operational problems; calls for a thorough assessment of the situation on the ground and formulation of a concise step-by-step action plan as mandatory preliminary exercise of any technical assistance project; requests that in its subsequent technical assistance programmes the Commission applies a more planned approach, including a timeline with start and end date for mandates;

35. Underlines that a dedicated budget is an essential pre-requisite to a successful technical assistance programme, both for planning and streamlining expenses, thus avoiding different levels of control and rules to be observed, related to separate budget lines;

36. Notes that the task force managed an impressive number of projects involving multiple partner organisations; believes that the impact of technical assistance could have been improved by streamlining programmes, limiting the number of partner organisations and scope of projects to minimise administrative coordination efforts and increase efficiency;

37. Regrets that the beneficiary Member State as well as the task force did not provide the Commission with regular activity reports; points out that the Commission should insist on receiving quarterly activity reports without excessive delay and a comprehensive final report in the form of an ex post evaluation within a reasonable timeframe after the conclusion of the work of the Task Force on Greece; requests that the Commission monitor the implementation of technical assistance systematically in order to focus on results-oriented technical assistance; requests further that the technical assistance and the Task Force on Greece should include in their various reports an accounting of how and where exactly the so-called ‘bailout’ funds for Greece were disbursed;

38. Calls on the Commission, Parliament and Council to use the discussion on the SRSP for the period 2017 to 2020 as an opportunity to revise the good practice of domain leaders; encourages the Commission to find a system together with the Member States to hire experts directly from the Member States, thus avoiding another layer of complexity and administrative burden by circumventing national agencies;

39. Demands the Member States to show stronger commitment: a performance-based approach would allow the Parliament as well as national parliaments to play a more supportive role through their respective budget oversight committees;

Part III — Special Report No 21/2015 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Review of the risks related to a results-oriented approach for Union development and cooperation action’

40. Welcomes the Court's report and sets out its observations and recommendations below;

41. Acknowledges the fact that the Commission has integrated risk analysis into the management of its external operations, which are carried out in complex and fragile environments with numerous types of risks, partner countries having differing levels of development and governance frameworks;

42. Especially welcomes the Court's recommendation to the Commission to improve the use of terminology regarding long-term results (outputs, outcomes and impacts) and stresses the importance of formulating true SMART objectives before any decision on financing different projects is taken;

43. Highlights the need to put extra focus on formulating ‘attainable and realistic’ goals to avoid the cases where the initial objectives were met by partner countries but without significant results in terms of development;

44. Considers it necessary to refrain from focusing on budgetary outturn as the sole management objective, as this can be detrimental to the principle of sound financial management and the achievement of results;

45. Recalls that the regular monitoring and mapping of high risk factors (external, financial and operational) and their quantification, from identification to implementation phases, is a prerequisite not only for a good financial management and quality expenditure but also to ensure the credibility, sustainability and reputation of the Union interventions; takes the view that setting-up activities and countries' risk profiles also facilitate the design of a rapid risk mitigation strategy in case of deterioration of the situation in a partner country;

46. Highlights the need to regularly adapt the control environment and risk management functions to take into account the emergence of new forms of assistance instruments and facilities like the blended finance, trust funds and financial partnerships with other international institutions;

47. Reiterates the view that a new balance between absorption, compliance and performance is needed and to be reflected in the management of operations;

48. Believes that developing partner countries' capacity building, governance frameworks and ownership is also an important way to mitigate systemic risks in order to favour a conducive environment allowing funds to reach their intended purposes and respond to the 3 Es requirements (economy, efficiency and effectiveness);

49. Also considers necessary the strengthening of political and policy dialogue, aid conditionality and the logical chain framework in order to ensure both the coherence between decision and preconditions of payments or disbursements in financing agreements by clearly linking payments to the achievement of actions and results as well as the relevance of selected objectives and indicators;

50. Encourages, particularly in the case of co-funded and multi-donor initiatives, international institutions to: — assess and plan the future benefits of a project and the way each partner contributes towards the final outcomes and broader impacts so as to avoid the questions about the results ownership, i.e. which part of the results was attributable to the Union funding or to other donors' interventions, — combine their governance frameworks with the Union one, notably by improving their risk management methods; considers that the fungibility of funds should be closely monitored for its high level of fiduciary risk;

51. Calls on the Commission to ensure that the connection between evaluations and policy formulation is effective by taking into account all lessons learned in the decision-making process;

52. Recalls that undermining performance monitoring and results evaluation is detrimental to public accountability and to comprehensive information for policymakers;

Part IV — Special Report No 23/2015 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Water quality in the Danube river basin: progress in implementing the Water Framework Directive but still some way to go’

53. Believes that the guidelines for a more differentiated reporting on progress with regard to water quality should be provided by the Commission;

54. Agrees with the Court that the Commission should foster comparability of data, for example, by reducing the discrepancies in the number of physicochemical substances that are assessed for the ecological status;

55. Highlights the need for the Commission to continue its follow-up of Member States' progress in reaching good water quality, the objective of the water framework directive;

56. Invites the Member States to ensure good-quality water monitoring in order to have accurate information on the situation and origin of pollution by water body, to allow better targeting and increase cost-effectiveness of the remedial measures;

57. Encourages the Member States to ensure coordination between those bodies defining measures in the river basin management plans and those approving projects for funding;

58. Encourages the Member States to assess and ensure the effectiveness of the enforcement mechanisms, in particular the coverage to be achieved and the deterrent effect of the penalties applied;

59. Invites the Member States to assess the potential of using the water pollution charge as an economic instrument and as a way to apply the ‘polluter pays’ principle at least for the main substances which negatively affect water quality;

60. Calls on the Commission to consider systematically assessing not only the existence, but also the adequacy of the good agricultural and environmental condition standards and minimum requirements adopted by the Member States;

61. Notes that the Commission should provide guidance on the possible methods for cost recovery in the field of diffuse pollution;

62. Calls on the Member States to assess the potential of using economic instruments, such as environmental taxes, as an incentive to reduce pollution and as a way to apply the ‘polluter pays’ principle;

63. Invites the Commission and the Member States to identify ways for simplifying the set-up and implementation of the checks and for ensuring their effectiveness, on the basis of an inventory of the enforcement of both Union and national mechanisms;

Part V — Special Report No 24/2015 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Tackling intra-Community VAT fraud: More action needed’

64. Is of the opinion that the Commission should initiate the establishment of a common system of estimating the size of intra-Community VAT fraud, which would allow Member States to evaluate their performance against adequate indicators; considers that the performance should be in terms of reducing the intra-Community VAT fraud, increasing detection of fraud and increasing tax recovery following the detection of fraud;

65. Believes that, in order to improve the performance of Eurofisc as an efficient early warning system, the Commission should recommend to Member States to: (a) introduce a common risk analysis to ensure that the information exchanged through Eurofisc is well targeted to fraud; (b) improve the speed and frequency of these information exchanges; (c) use a reliable and user-friendly IT environment; (d) set up relevant indicators and targets to measure the performance of the different working fields; (e) participate in all Eurofisc working fields;

66. Calls on the Commission in the context of its evaluation of the administrative cooperation arrangements among the Member States for exchanging information between their tax authorities to fight against intra-Community VAT fraud, to carry out monitoring visits selected on a risk basis; believes that these monitoring visits should focus on improving the timeliness of Member States' replies to information requests, the reliability of the VAT Information Exchange System, the speed of Multilateral Controls, and the follow-up of the findings of its previous reports on administrative cooperation;

67. Bearing in mind that Member States need information from non-Union countries to enforce VAT collection of e-commerce business-to-consumer services and intangibles supplied via the internet, calls on the Commission to support the Member States in negotiating mutual assistance arrangements with the countries where most of the digital service providers are established and in signing these arrangements, in order to strengthen cooperation with non-Union countries and enforce VAT collection;

68. Is of the opinion that while intra-Community VAT fraud is often linked with organised criminal structures, the Commission and Member States should remove legal obstacles preventing the exchange of information between administrative, judicial and law enforcement authorities at national and Union level; considers, in particular, that the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and Europol should have access to the VAT Information Exchange System and Eurofisc data and that Member States should benefit from intelligence information supplied by them;

69. Believes that the Commission should provide sufficient financial resources in order to ensure the viability and sustainability of the operational action plans set up by Member States and ratified by the Council under the umbrella of the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Crime Threats initiative;

Part VI — Special Report No 25/2015 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘EU support for rural infrastructure: potential to achieve significantly greater value for money’

70. Recognises the importance of rural infrastructure investments supported by Union funds, especially by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development for needs, whose benefits go beyond agriculture, which otherwise may have not been funded given significant economic challenges and scarcity of financing faced by rural areas;

71. Notes that European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development funding to infrastructure projects is based on shared management where Member States are responsible for management, monitoring and control as well as for selection and implementation of projects, while the role of the Commission is to supervise the proper functioning of the management and control systems in Member States; believes that these roles should be more clearly defined so that beneficiaries are clear as to which areas monitoring bodies have competence over; underlines that both the Commission and Member States must respect the principles of sound financial management;

72. Considers the Court's findings and recommendations, included in the Special Report No 25/2015, useful for further improvement of the performance-based utilisation of Union funded investments in rural infrastructure and for achievement of better results and value for money; requests that the Commission implement them;

73. Strongly recommends that the Union investments in rural infrastructure be targeted at projects that allow improvement of public services and/or contribute to the creation of jobs and economic development in rural areas, and for which there is a demonstrable need for public support and which deliver added value, while also ensuring that these funds are additional investments, and are not used as a replacement of national funding to essential services;

74. Recommends that Member States use a coordinated approach which quantifies needs, where applicable, and funding gaps and justifies the use of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) measures, and which considers not only Union funds and programmes, but also national, regional and local programmes and public and private funds that could address — or are already addressing — the same needs as the RDP;

75. Calls on the Commission to build upon the first steps taken to ensure effective coordination and complementarity between the different funds of the Union, undertaken through the checklist used by it to ensure the consistency of the 2014-2020 RDPs, and to provide further guidance to Member States during the implementation of the programmes on how to achieve not only better complementarity, but also on how to avoid the risk of substitution of funds and to mitigate the risk of deadweight; in this regard, asks the Commission also to intervene by promoting good practices;

76. Recommends to the Member States, in order to mitigate the risk of deadweight, before setting aid rates for infrastructure measures to assess the appropriate level of public funding needed to encourage investments, as well as during the project selection process to check, where appropriate before approving applications for support, whether the applicant has sufficient capital or access to capital to finance all or part of the project; encourages better use of management information systems by the Member States;

77. Calls for the principle of additionality to be respected at all levels and insists therefore on a proper set-up of monitoring committees and their active participation in the process of coordination; asks the Commission to properly utilise its advisory role in the monitoring committees;

78. Welcomes the Commission's guidance issued in March 2014 encouraging Member States to ensure that eligibility and selection criteria are applied in a transparent and consistent way throughout the programming period, that selection criteria are applied even in cases when the budget available is sufficient to fund all eligible projects and that projects with a total score that is below a certain threshold are excluded from support; calls on the Member States to strictly follow this guidance for Union-funded rural infrastructure projects;

79. Request that the Member States establish and consistently apply criteria to ensure the selection of the most cost-effective projects, that is to say the projects with the potential to make the greatest contribution to the RDP objectives per unit of cost; asks them to ensure that project cost estimations are based on up-to-date price information that reflects actual market prices and that public procurement procedures are fair and transparent and promote genuine competition; notes the guidelines on how to avoid common errors in the Union co-funded project, developed by the Commission at the end of 2014, and encourages all Member States to fulfil the ex ante conditionality for public procurement requirements by the end of 2016;

80. Calls also for greater transparency in the selection process; considers that public opinion on local problems in rural areas should be taken into consideration by managing authorities when approving grant applications; recognises that local action groups may play an important role in this process;

81. Recommends that the Commission include in the scope of its future audits an examination of performance aspects concerning rural infrastructure projects; expects the changes made for the 2014-2020 programming period by the Commission, based on the identified past problems, to bring the intended improvement;

82. Requests that the Commission and the Member States introduce requirements that oblige beneficiaries to ensure long-term sustainability and proper maintenance of the infrastructure financed by Union investments, and to check implementation of respective requirements;

83. Requests that Member States set a reasonable timeframe for processing grant and payment applications and respect it, as in most cases beneficiaries have already drawn down bridging loans to complete works;

84. Recommends that for the 2014-2020 period, the Commission and the Member States collect timely, relevant and reliable data that provides useful information on the achievements of the projects and measures financed; expects that this information will allow conclusions to be drawn on the efficiency and effectiveness of the funds spent, identify the measures and types of infrastructure projects delivering the greatest contribution to the Union objectives and provide a sound basis for improving the management of the measures;

85. Encourages the Member States to ensure that clear, specific and where possible quantified objectives are set for the projects to which funds are committed, and thus to facilitate the execution and monitoring of the projects, and useful feedback for the managing authorities;

86. Acknowledges that ‘community-led local development’ is an important tool for overcoming the deficiencies identified by the Court;

Part VII — Special Report No 1/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Is the Commission's system for performance measurement in relation to farmers' incomes well designed and based on sound data?’

87. Recommends that the Commission develop a more comprehensive statistical framework to provide information on the disposable income of farm households and to better capture the standard of living of farmers; believes that for this purpose the Commission should, in cooperation with the Member States and based on a common methodology, consider how best to develop and combine existing Union statistical instruments;

88. Recommends that the Commission improve the framework for the comparison of farmers' incomes with incomes in other sectors of the economy;

89. Calls on the Commission to further develop the Economic Accounts for Agriculture so that their potential could be better used in order to: — provide more detailed information on the factors impacting agricultural income, — ensure transmission of regional-level data based on formal arrangements with the Member States.

90. Is of the opinion that the Commission should examine whether the Economic Accounts for Agriculture can be further developed to provide a reasonable estimate of the economic value of the public goods that are produced by farmers and ensure that Economic Accounts for Agriculture information is used appropriately in income indicators;

91. Recommends that the Commission base its analysis of farmers' incomes on indicators taking account of the current situation of agriculture and on sufficient and consistent data for all beneficiaries of CAP measures; considers that this could be done by developing synergies between existing administrative data or by developing the Farm Accountancy Data Network or other suitable statistical tools;

92. Is of the opinion, in view of the importance of the Economic Accounts for Agriculture for monitoring the CAP, that the Commission should introduce regular quality reporting on the Economic Accounts for Agriculture and obtain reasonable assurances that Member States set up a quality assurance framework to ensure that data provided by Member States are comparable and compiled in line with the quality criteria applying to European statistics;

93. Recommends that the Commission address weaknesses identified in the implementation of the Farm Accountancy Data Network by agreeing a clear timetable with the Member States concerned and encouraging better use of the system's potential;

94. Urges the Commission further to develop the present quality arrangements for the establishment of the Farm Accountancy Data Network statistics by the Member States to ensure that, in all Member States, sectors and size classes of holdings that are of interest for the CAP are adequately represented, reflecting also the choices made by Member States in terms of CAP options;

95. Recommends, taking into consideration the weaknesses identified by the Court, that the Commission improve the reliability and completeness of performance information of the CAP measures in relation to farmers' incomes by: — defining from the outset appropriate operational objectives and baselines against which the performance of the CAP measures can be compared for the next programming period, — in the context of its evaluations, complementing the current framework of performance indicators with other relevant and good-quality data to measure the results achieved, — also in the context of its evaluations, assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of the measures designed to support farmers' incomes;

Part VIII — Special Report No 3/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Combating eutrophication in the Baltic Sea: further and more effective action needed’

96. Welcomes the Court's report and endorses its recommendations;

97. Deeply regrets that even though between 2007 and 2013, the Union contributed EUR 14,5 billion to waste water treatment and water protection measures in Union Member States in the Baltic Sea region, in addition to EUR 44 million to water quality improvement in Russia and Belarus in 2001-2014, limited progress has been achieved to reduce nutrient emissions; asks the Commission to pay special attention to the cost-effectiveness of the above-mentioned measures;

98. Highlights that eutrophication is one of the key threats to reaching a good ecological status for the Baltic Sea; emphasises the importance of combatting the eutrophication of one of the world's most polluted seas; therefore, regrets that limited progress has been made on nutrient reduction in the frame of the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission's (HELCOM's) nutrient reduction scheme which allocates nutrient reduction targets to each Baltic country; regrets that the Union directive has been only partially applied by some Members States;

99. Stresses that the Member States should create their nitrates programme procedures based on the most recent scientific indication and advice;

100. Asks the Commission to request that Member States collect information on the cost-effectiveness of nutrient load reduction measures in order to have a robust analysis for establishing future programmes of measures;

101. Urges the Commission to improve the reliability of monitoring data on nutrients in the Baltic Sea as the reliability is not assured;

102. Urges the Commission to promote effective designation of nitrate vulnerable areas to Member States in order to put in place sufficient measures in highly vulnerable areas and on the other hand avoid putting an unnecessary burden on farmers operating in areas that are not nitrate vulnerable; emphasises that the Member States in the Baltic Sea region should re-evaluate their designation of nitrate vulnerable areas;

103. Notes with concern the lack of effectiveness of actions to reduce nutrient pollution of urban waste water; asks the Commission to ensure effective follow-up of the implementation of the Urban Waste Water Directive (7) and ensure that Member States comply fully with the directive;

104. Regrets that the HELCOM recommendations have been only partly achieved and implemented under the Union directive for specific activities;

105. Notes that the leverage effect has been high in financing the projects in Russia and Belarus; is worried however about the delays in projects which might result in significant losses of resources; asks the Commission to continue its efforts in this regard and to focus more closely on key polluters identified by HELCOM; also believes that in regard to the cooperation among Union and non-Union states best practices should be identified and applied widely;

Part IX — Special Report No 4/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘The European Institute of Innovation and Technology must modify its delivery mechanism and elements of its design to achieve the expected impact’

106. Welcomes the report dedicated to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and sets out its observations and recommendations below;

107. Welcomes the Court's findings and recommendations;

108. Notes that the Court has identified several weaknesses in key concepts and operational processes and has given four recommendations if the EIT wants to become the ground-breaking innovative institute;

109. Recalls the discharge 2012 and 2013 on the EIT in which the decision on granting the EIT discharge was postponed, based on the lack of assurance on the legality and regularity of the EIT's grant transactions, inappropriate evidence not surpassing the ceiling of 25 % of the knowledge and innovation communities' (KICs') global expenditure, the high level of carry-overs not being implemented and the delays in the implementations of the recommendations of the Commission's Internal Audit Service;

110. Considers that the current report of the Court gives rise to serious concerns about the basis, funding model and the operation of the EIT;

111. Notes the reply of the Commission on the report, whereby the Commission gives its point of view on the facts and findings; observes that the Commission agrees with the majority of the recommendations of the Court;

112. Notes that the report states that in 2015 several improvements were made by the EIT that seem to reflect the findings and recommendations of the Court; notes that close monitoring and evaluation is needed to verify the effects of these improvements;

113. Emphasises that a multiannual grant agreement between the EIT and the KICs and the multiannual strategy of the KICs should not stand in the way of the KICs' annual reporting;

114. Emphasises that performance monitoring and results evaluation is essential to public accountability and to comprehensive information for policymakers; highlights that this must also apply in the case of the EIT and KICs;

115. Notes that the Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation introduced in 2015 the concept of ‘Open Innovation’ as the key policy concept to frame innovation policy at Union level; considers that it is not clear which role the EIT plays in this concept; emphasises that this concept does not provide a clear framework for the development of a coherent and coordinated action by the Commission, given the number of policies and instruments in the mix and number of directorate generals involved in supporting the innovation;

116. Calls on the Commission to ensure a coordinated and efficient innovation policy, in which the responsible directorates-general tune up the activities and instruments, and to inform the Parliament on these efforts;

117. Is concerned by the fact that in the KICs the involvement of businesses in the choice of research projects could lead to situations where researchers are financially and otherwise linked to the industry and may no longer be seen as independent; expresses this concern in the light of developments in which the influence of businesses in science and fundamental research has grown;

118. Understands the EIT's mission to promote cooperation among higher education, research and innovation; notes that companies may often be the main beneficiary, being the legal owners of innovative products brought to the market and receiving financial profits; stresses the need in this situation to consider the possibility of incorporating a structure in the cooperation-model in which given funds could, at least partially, flow back to the EIT;

119. Believes that the improvements mentioned and the agreement of the Commission on the recommendations are reason to await further developments within the EIT;

120. Calls on the EIT to give the discharge authority in its 2016 annual report an in-depth analysis of the implementation of the Court's recommendations;

121. Calls on the Commission to provide Parliament with a follow-up report on the implementation and monitoring of and actions taken regarding the Court's recommendations;

Part X — Special Report No 5/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Has the Commission ensured effective implementation of the Services Directive?’

122. Welcomes the Court's report, endorses its recommendations and is pleased that the Commission accepts these and will take them into account in future;

123. Notes that despite the limitation of its scope by the exclusion of provision of some services, the Service Directive (8) has a very broad field of application, which required the Commission to have a set of measures to ensure its correct implementation;

124. Stresses that the services market has not achieved its full potential and that the impact on growth and jobs of successful implementation of the Services Directive is high; while the potential economic benefit of full implementation of the directive is still not known, considers that the Commission should develop a study in order to estimate the output gains in the most reliable quantitative terms possible;

125. Encourages subsequent inclusion of more sectors in order to achieve a broader removal of sectorial obstacles to market integration with a final goal of removing of barriers in the internal market for services and developing full Union potential for growth, competitiveness and job creation;

126. Considers that Member States could have made better use of the measures provided by the Commission to support transposition, implementation and enforcement, especially by sharing the problems faced in the different stages of the procedure, discussing possible common solutions and exchanging best practices;

127. Agrees that the Commission should reduce the length of infringement procedures as much as possible;

128. Regrets that tools such as the points of single contact, the Internal Market Information System and the European Consumer Centres (ECC-net) were not sufficiently known and used by businesses and consumers when having an issue related to the application of the Services Directive;

129. Notes that the provision of services online continue to be limited due to uncertainties for providers and recipients;

Part XI — Special Report No 6/2016 of the Court entitled ‘Eradication, control and monitoring programmes to contain animal diseases’

130. Welcomes the recommendations of the Court and welcomes the Commission's acceptance;

131. Welcomes that the animal disease programmes were evaluated as successful by the audit and that the technical advice, risk analysis and supporting mechanisms were graded as good; welcomes the positive results of these programmes on the animal health in the Union; encourages the Commission and the Member States to apply the successful approach also in the future;

132. Believes that the extensive output indicators for national programmes for the eradication, control and monitoring of certain animal diseases and zoonoses should be further improved, particularly relating to the technical implementation and economic indicators, which would allow for an analysis of the cost-effectiveness of the programmes;

133. Notes the Commission's view that establishing of the cost-effectiveness of the programmes is difficult, especially as there are no models available even on the international level; further notes that the cost-benefit of the programmes has been proven by avoiding the spread of disease and human infection and by saving lives;

134. Notes that the exchange of epidemiological information and the ready access to historic results could be better supported by the relevant information systems, allowing for better coordination of control activities between Member States; notes that according to the Commission, existing IT tools are being developed to better support the Member States; encourages the Commission to ensure an added value of the developed IT tools for the exchange of necessary information;

135. Considers that the Commission should support the availability of vaccines for use by the Member States when epidemically justified; welcomes the fact that the vaccine/antigen banks have already been put in place for two diseases; encourages the Commission to continue with a risk analysis that might determine a potential need for other vaccine/antigen banks;

136. Notes that the Commission accepts to ensure that Member States systematically include, when relevant, the wildlife aspect in their veterinary programmes;

137. Notes that the programmes in certain countries were not as successful in eradication of the animal diseases and that progress was rather slow; invites the Commission in cooperation with the Member States to prioritise these specific cases and to prepare a detailed strategy that would help to streamline the eradication of the diseases, in particular of the bovine tuberculosis in the UK and Ireland and ovine and caprine brucellosis in the south of Italy;

138. Notes with concern that the underlying legislation covering the topic of animal disease remains overly complex and fragmented; welcomes the adoption of an umbrella piece of legislation — the regulation on transmissible animal diseases (the ‘Animal Health Law’) (9) in March 2016; notes that the new regulation will be applicable 5 years following the adoption; welcomes the fact that the new regulation will offer streamlined, simpler and clearer rules;

Part XII — Special Report No 7/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘The European External Action Service's management of its buildings around the world’

139. Welcomes the Court's report and sets out its observations and recommendations below;

140. Emphasises that the EEAS and the Member States have a shared interest in further developing local cooperation in the area of management of buildings with a specific and continuous attention to be devoted to security issues, best value for money and the Union's image;

141. Welcomes the increase in co-location projects of Union delegations with Member States with the signature of 17 co-location memoranda of understanding; encourages the EEAS to further seek ways to extend this good practice; considers that this policy should include innovative approaches aiming at defining both a coordinated strategy of co-location with Member States eager to do so and appropriate cost-sharing arrangements related to buildings and logistics;

142. Regrets the insufficient recording and inaccuracies in the information system for managing delegations office buildings and residences; asks for a regular review of the completeness and reliability of data encoded by Union delegations;

143. Urges the EEAS to reinforce its management control and monitoring tools of all the costs incurred in the building policy in order to ensure an accurate overview and follow-up of all the expenditure; considers that emphasis should be put on the respect of the ceilings defined in the building policy to decrease the total annual rent of delegations' offices, the adequacy of contributions paid by co-located entities, the coverage of the running costs involved in co-location situations and the correctness of costs with local market conditions;

144. Believes that legal and technical expertise in real estate management should be swiftly developed while considering any cost-effective alternative options, such as hiring external expertise, like local brokers, to prospect the market or possibly negotiate with landlords;

145. Supports the implementation of a medium-long term strategy identifying all options from investment priorities or possibilities of purchases, renting renewals to the sharing of premises with Member States, taking account also of staff projections and policy planning and development;

Part XIII — Special Report No 8/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Rail freight transport performance in the EU: still not on the right track’

146. Welcomes the Court's report, endorses its recommendations and is pleased that the Commission accepts these and will take them into account;

147. Draws attention to the areas where action by Member States and Commission is most needed: market liberalisation, traffic management procedures, administrative and technical constraints, monitoring and transparency of the performance of the rail freight sector, fair competition between different modes of transport, a consistent approach between policy objectives and funds allocation, and improved coordination between the Member States and the Commission in the selection, planning and management of projects and rail network maintenance;

148. Notes that the Commission has not properly assessed the impact of the legislative packages that it has launched since 2000 in the rail sector, in particular concerning rail freight transport; regrets that the Union funds invested in several projects cannot be considered cost-effective;

149. Considers that a continuation of the current state of play in the rail sector will mean that the shifting targets for 2030 are not met;

150. Finds that it is in the interest of Member States to have a common and mandatory impact assessment of future rail freight transport legislation to ensure that the shortcomings related to network incompatibilities are effectively overcome;

151. Notes that the railway sector is generally very corporative which may affect the perception of market liberalisation more as a threat than as an advantage;

152. Considers rail freight transport one of the key aspects of the single market for goods and given its massive positive potential in terms of climate change targets and reducing road transport usage, urges the Commission to give it a new impetus within the single market strategy; asks for a rail freight transport strategy to be put in place;

153. Asks for a comprehensive evaluation of the Union's rail freight transport with particular emphasis on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 913/2010 (10) including one-stop-shop activity and paths allocation, and an evaluation, in parallel, of freight corridors and of the Connecting Europe Facility corridors including the projects already approved under the Connecting Europe Facility;

154. Asks for a comprehensive evaluation of the national rail systems interoperability;

155. Asks for an evaluation of the Member States' transport strategies drawn up following conclusion of the partnership agreements as regards the cross-border harmonisation and operability of TEN-T corridors;

156. Asks for an action plan to support the full and swift implementation of the 4th Railway Package;

157. Regrets that several of the obstacles to developing a strong and competitive European rail transport that were identified by the Court in Special Report No 8/2010 continue to obstruct progress in the sector;

Part XIV — Special Report No 9/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Union external migration spending in Southern Mediterranean and Eastern Neighbourhood countries until 2014’

158. Welcomes the Court's report and sets out its observations and recommendations below;

159. Notes the Court's critical approach and the large number of shortcomings presented by the Court, particularly the lack of effectiveness in using the allocated funds;

160. Calls on the Commission to evaluate all of the Court's observations and to take the requested measures to avoid making the same mistakes during 2014-2020 migration policy; calls for application of all the Court's recommendations;

161. Believes that the use of funds should be guided by improved monitoring and evaluation systems based on baseline indicators, progressive benchmarks and measurable and realistic objectives; calls on the Commission to review all indicators, benchmarks and objectives provided by the actual migration programmes;

162. Is of the opinion that a comprehensive and coordinated response has to be constantly sought to the extent that the migration crisis poses many challenges that cross various sectors and institutional boundaries;

163. Calls for continuous refinement of the strategic understanding and framework of the Union's external migration policies and policy options with key actors to ensure clarity as well as a coordinated and coherent mobilisation of external migration mechanisms in the short, medium and long term, within or outside the budgetary framework of the Union;

164. Calls on the Commission to engage constructively for a better coordination between instruments, mechanisms and relevant stakeholders to achieve migration crisis prevention;

165. Invites all major stakeholders to reflect and respond adequately on the balance between the flexibility in interventions, the complementarity of the funds, their level and necessary leveraging as well as potential synergies and the overall additionality of Union's interventions;

166. Believes, in this context, that due care should be given to the appropriate targeting of aid to different and evolving external migration issues, while also ensuring the adequacy of oversight of disbursed funds in order to avoid the risk of misappropriation of funds and double financing;

167. Considers that there is a crucial need to reconcile the demand for better results with the availability of sufficient funds to ensure a high level of ambition in the design of the Union's comprehensive and sustainable response to current and future challenges induced by the migration crisis; believes that the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework mid-term revision are the appropriate forum to address these challenges, with a view to increasing the budget for those funds;

168. Believes that, in addition to the funding gap, the existing fragmentation of instruments with their own specific objectives that are not interlinked hinders parliamentary oversight of the way funds are implemented and identification of where responsibilities lie, making it difficult to clearly assess the financial amounts actually spent to support external action on migration; regrets that this leads to a lack of effectiveness, transparency and accountability; considers it necessary to refocus ways of using existing policy instruments with a clear and renewed architecture of objectives to increase their overall effectiveness and visibility;

169. Is of the opinion that Union external migration spending needs to be disbursed more efficiently and that it needs to fulfil ‘added value’ criteria in order to provide people with adequate living conditions in the countries of their origin and to avoid an increase in flows of economic migration;

170. Calls on the Commission to follow, assess and review constructively the activities of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which were to begin in October 2016;

171. Welcomes the creation of Union trust funds and the intention to disburse funds more quickly and flexibly in emergency situations, and to bring together various sources of funding in order to address all aspects of any crises;

172. Notes that trust funds are part of an ad hoc response which shows that the Union budget and the Multiannual Financial Framework lack the resources and flexibility needed for a rapid and comprehensive approach to major crises; deplores the fact that they result in a bypassing of the budgetary authority, which undermines the unity of the budget;

173. Welcomes the Commission's proposal as part of the Multiannual Financial Framework mid-term revision, to establish a new European Union Crisis Reserve, to be financed from de-committed appropriations, as an additional instrument to react rapidly to urgent Union issues; calls on the Council to fully endorse this proposal;

174. Emphasises the importance of sufficient control mechanisms to ensure political scrutiny of budget implementation in the context of the discharge procedure; urges the Commission to take immediate steps to increase the involvement of the budgetary and budgetary control authority and to better align the trust funds and other mechanisms with the budgetary norm, in particular by making them appear in the Union budget;

175. Regrets that the Commission did not provide details of actual payments and calls on the Commission to take adequate measures to strengthen and simplify the encoding in the financial information system in order to better track and monitor the amounts targeted for external action on migration;

176. Asks the Commission to launch a comprehensive repository tool for Union migration-related spending, including all completed, ongoing and planned projects; considers that the interactive database should provide stakeholders and citizens with the results visualised on the world map, and enabling a search filtered by country, type of project and the corresponding amounts;

177. Is of the opinion that management by foresight would be more effective than a merely responsive policy such as crisis management in the long term;

178. Recalls Parliament's stance towards a holistic approach to migration based on a new policy mix including strengthening of the nexus between migration and development by addressing the root causes of migration while also advocating a shift in the ways of funding the migration crisis;

Part XV — Special Report No 10/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Further improvements needed to ensure effective implementation of the excessive deficit procedure’

179. Welcomes the findings and recommendations of the Court's report;

180. Recommends that the Commission improve transparency of the excessive deficit procedure (EDP) through regular communication of its country assessments on compliance with structural reforms proposed under EDP and through greater transparency in the application of the rules;

181. Believes that following consultation with Member States, the Commission should regularly report to the Parliament on the progress of country-specific EDPs;

182. Recommends that the Commission continue its progress in involving national fiscal councils and ensure that the European Fiscal Board takes a formal role under the EDP; notes that transparency under the EDP has improved in recent years and recognises that certain information of a politically sensitive nature cannot always be put into the public domain;

183. Recommends that the EDP focus more closely on the reduction of government debt; notes that as of end-2014 only 13 Member States had debt-to-gross domestic product levels below 60 %; points out that several Member States now find themselves heavily indebted, despite the fact that the Union is benefiting from a modest recovery and public debt levels are higher now than they were in 2010;

184. Acknowledges that the debt ceiling rule was only made operational under the EDP in 2011; considers that reducing government debt levels, particularly in heavily indebted Member States, will improve economic growth substantially in the long-term;

185. Recommends ensuring that sufficient flexibility is maintained in the application of EDP rules under the Stability and Growth Pact; emphasises that because unanticipated events can occur in macroeconomic policy, a sound economic governance framework needs to be adaptable in order to take account of economic developments;

186. Considers that the Commission should ensure that the application of EDP rules are closely coordinated with structural reform measures agreed through the European semester;

Part XVI — Special Report No 11/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Strengthening administrative capacity in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: limited progress in a difficult context’

187. Welcomes the Court's report, endorses its recommendations and encourages the Commission to take these recommendations into account when working on strengthening the administrative capacity of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia;

188. Is concerned that limited progress was made in strengthening administrative capacities with no significant progress in implementation of legislation in some key areas such as the development of a professional and independent civil service;

189. Notes that only partial progress has been made in tackling corruption and improving transparency;

190. Notes however that the Commission has to operate in a difficult political context and meets with lack of political will and commitment of national authorities to tackle the remaining issues; notes that the constraints of the ongoing political crisis played a role in the success of the financed projects;

191. Notes and supports the key role which the Commission plays in resolving the political crisis in the country and welcomes the involvement of the commissioner in mediating the political dialogue between opposing political forces;

192. Calls on the Commission to continue working on the dialogue with the political leaders across the political spectre, national authorities and experts on judiciary and law enforcement in order to find an agreement on an active fight against corruption and organised crime and on implementation of strict measures and mechanisms to prevent corruption and economic crime in line with the country's criminal law;

193. Strongly recommends that the Commission use political dialogue and contacts with national authorities in order to improve the efficiency of the public procurement system and the transparency of public spending;

194. Calls on the Commission to prioritise the fight against corruption and regrets the absence of an effective government strategy in the fight against corruption; reiterates the need for greater political commitment by the national authorities in order to ensure sustainable results in this respect;

195. Calls on the Commission to build on the achievements of successful projects, which are sustainable, have a quantifiable added value and were implemented and used in accordance with the regulations, when pursuing the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA II);

196. Welcomes the Commission's establishment of projects focused on civil society organisations; calls on the Commission to continue this practice and to establish strong relationships with local NGOs;

197. Encourages the Commission to design projects that strengthen the rights and position of whistleblowers who bring public attention to corruption cases and fraud;

198. Notes that although many of the projects were well-managed, the results were not always sustainable or even achieved; further notes that the projects did not always fall into a coherent approach towards strengthening administrative capacity building; calls on the Commission to improve strategic planning and to secure sustainability and viability of the projects by setting it as a pre-condition of the projects;

199. Calls on the Commission to continue to follow the principles of sound financial management; invites the Commission to help design projects that serve also as a stepping stone for further investments in the country; encourages the Commission to prioritise projects with high potential in key areas such as public procurement or selection procedures, and to avoid financing projects with limited prospects of sustainability;

200. Encourages the Commission to react in a flexible manner to unexpected developments either through the timely release of relevant resources or by their decrease in order to address emerging issues;

Part XVII — Special report No 12/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Agencies use of grants: not always appropriate or demonstrably effective’

201. Welcomes the Court's report and sets out its observations and recommendations below;

202. Welcomes the Court's findings and recommendations;

203. Notes the reply of the Commission and the agencies involved, which, inter alia, contains important information on measures taken since the audits took place;

204. Emphasises that the agencies are responsible for the multi-annual and annual programming as well as for the implementation (operational and financial) of their grant actions; finds therefore, that the agencies' effective management of grant activities is crucial for the achievement of the Union's objectives and policies;

205. Notes that the Court has concluded that the agencies audited in general awarded and paid grants in compliance with the rules;

206. Observes nevertheless that the Court has identified certain shortcomings regarding funding options, award procedures, control systems and performance measurement and has given five recommendations to improve these shortcomings;

207. Notes that an agency's strategic justification and choice of a funding tool could strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the tool and thereby the implementation of its tasks; highlights that inadequate follow-up of ex ante evaluation could lead to agencies choosing inappropriate funding tools and poor grant design;

208. Regrets the common broad descriptions of the agencies' grant activities and the vague output descriptions which lead to incomplete annual working plans;

209. Notes the importance of aligning the agencies' grant actions with their mandate and strategic objectives; encourages therefore all agencies to have specific guidelines and criteria to assist their choice of the specific funding tool, based on an analysis of the agencies' needs, its resources, the objectives to be achieved, the potential beneficiaries to be targeted as well as the level of competition necessary and lessons learned from previous choices;

210. Notes that agencies' work programmes should indicate which activities are to be implemented by grants, the specific objectives and expected results to be achieved by the grant actions, as well as the planned financial and human resources needed to implement grant actions;

211. Considers that the setting of strategic objectives, targeted results and impacts, is of the utmost importance to achieving well-defined annual programming;

212. Highlights that the regulatory framework of some agencies forces them to use grant procedures; notes with concern, however, that agencies did not systematically consider all funding options available to them and that grants were not always the most appropriate tool; further notes the Court's observation that grant procedures use more restrictive eligibility criteria and weaker financial award criteria than procurement and should therefore not be the default funding option; considers, however, that a careful balance should be maintained between the weaknesses of grant procedures versus the administrative costs involved in public procurement procedures, and does not therefore agree with the Court's observation that public procurement should be the default option;

213. Is concerned by the Court's observation that the agencies involved failed to set up adequate monitoring systems and ex post evaluations; calls upon agencies to develop ex post evaluations to improve their monitoring and reporting on grant-funded activities;

214. Emphasises that performance monitoring and results evaluation is essential to public accountability and to comprehensive information for policymakers; highlights that due to their decentralised character, this is even more relevant for agencies; calls upon agencies to set up grant monitoring and reporting systems based on results and impact-oriented key performance indicators as well as ex post-evaluation results; considers the role of key performance indicators crucial for monitoring and evaluating progress, impact and results;

215. Notes with concern that key performance indicators continue to focus on inputs and outputs rather than results and impacts; calls upon agencies to develop their key performance indicators more strategically and to base them on results and impacts;

216. Calls on agencies to develop and undertake a risk assessment evaluation of their annual working plans to improve efficiency through more accurate implementation, monitoring and evaluation;

217. Recommends strategic allocation of financial tools for short-term objectives to improve accuracy of financing decisions;

218. Calls upon the Union Agency Network to assist agencies in improving their funding procedures and, in particular, their procedures for performance monitoring in this respect;

219. Highlights in particular the Court's findings regarding the grant procedures and the need of transparency, equal treatment and avoidance of potential conflicts of interest; calls on the agencies concerned to implement the Court's recommendation as soon as possible;

220. Calls upon agencies to apply specific grant procedures to establish formal internal procedures governing the principles of transparency and equal treatment, and safeguarding against the potential conflicts of interest; highlights that for this reason, agencies should strengthen their verification system regarding grant project implementation;

221. Calls on the Commission and the agencies who were subject of the audits in this special report to provide the Parliament with an update of the implementation of the recommendations;

Part XVIII — Special Report No 13/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Union assistance for strengthening the public administration in Moldova’

222. Welcomes the Court's report, endorses its recommendations and encourages the Commission to take these recommendations into account when working on strengthening the administrative capacity of the Republic of Moldova;

223. Notes with concern that the Union has only partially contributed to strengthening the public administration and that the Court registered a number of shortcomings, including weaknesses in the design and implementation of the audited programmes and projects;

224. Notes however that the Commission has to operate in a difficult political context and meets with widespread corruption and many weaknesses of public institutions such as excessive bureaucracy, a lack of focus on core functions, a high staff turnover, low efficiency and lack of accountability; further notes that Moldova is hard hit by political instability, economic turmoil, deep poverty and massive emigration;

225. Notes that although the particular political circumstances and external factors played an important role in the success of the budgeted programmes and indeed went in many instances beyond the control of the Commission, there were concrete weaknesses that could have been addressed by the Commission;

226. Notes that the weaknesses observed by Court included the slow response time of the Commission to sudden developments, weak alignment of the programmes with Moldovan national strategies, a lack of ambitious targets, vague and unclear conditions, and a lack of justification for granting additional incentive-based funds;

227. Calls on the Commission to encourage their Moldavian counterparts to develop systematic, clearly formulated national strategies that would include clear, measurable objectives and to better link designing of the programmes in the country to these strategies;

228. Encourages the Commission to make use of ex ante evaluations to clearly assess the financing needs and to create focused and justified budgetary planning;

229. Calls on the Commission to prioritise the fight against corruption and regrets the absence of a truly effective government strategy in the fight against corruption; welcomes the appointment of the high level advisor on anti-corruption to the Prime Minister's office; however reiterates the need for a more ambitious and effective strategy and greater political commitment by the national authorities in order to ensure sustainable results in this respect; calls on the national authorities to focus on the fight against corruption and for a greater transparency and integrity of the public administration as a matter of priority;

230. Calls on the Commission to continue the dialogue with the political leaders across the political spectre, national authorities and experts on judiciary and law enforcement in order to find an agreement on an active fight against corruption and organised crime and on implementation of strict measures and mechanisms to prevent corruption and economic crime in line with the country's criminal law;

231. Encourages the Commission to design projects that would strengthen the rights and position of whistle-blowers who bring public attention to corruption cases and fraud;

232. Notes that the main aid delivery methods are sector budget support (74 % of aid) and projects; notes with regret that the budget support had a limited effect in strengthening the public administration;

233. Notes with concern that the method of sector budget support is a highly risky means of budget distribution, especially in the Moldovan context, in which the public administration is paralysed by massive corruption and dominated by a local oligarchy; invites the Commission to reconsider the methods utilised based on an in-depth risk analysis;

234. Invites the Commission to utilise methods that would bring visible and tangible results for the Moldovan citizens;

235. Notes that the projects designs were generally relevant, although they lacked coordination with regard to scope and timing and the technical assistance for the development of administrative capacity came later than needed;

236. Regrets that although projects generally delivered the expected outputs, the results were not always sustainable, for which the political will and external factors are partly responsible; calls on the Commission to build on the achievements of successful projects, which are sustainable, have a quantifiable added value and were implemented and used in accordance with the regulations; calls on the Commission to improve strategic planning and to secure sustainability and viability of the projects by setting it as a pre-condition of the projects;

237. Notes that the projects partially contributed towards strengthening public administration, however they were not always in line with the Moldovan administration's needs or objectives; calls on the Commission to focus the projects more specifically on concrete national needs;

238. Calls on the Commission to continue to follow the principles of sound financial management; invites the Commission to help design projects that would serve as a stepping stone for further investments in the country and to establish cooperation with international financial institutions in this regard; encourages the Commission to prioritise projects with high potential in key areas such as public procurement or selection procedures, and to avoid financing projects with limited prospects of sustainability;

239. Notes with concern that although in 2012 the Commission developed a more systematic analysis of risk, high-level steering committees for budget support operations and an early warning system for newly materialised risks, it was not able to detect in a timely manner ‘the theft of the century’, during which USD 1 billion of depositors funds, potentially even including contributions from the Union finances, were embezzled during a massive corruption scandal; notes that the budget support payments were finally put on hold in July 2015 and their resumption made conditional upon an improvement of the macroeconomic and fiscal situation and the conclusion of an IMF agreement;

240. Calls on the Commission to improve the early warning system and the risk analysis in order to react in a faster and more flexible manner to potential risks;

241. Observes that building an administrative capacity in Moldova is a key issue as the country does not have a full control over its entire territory, which gives an incentive to separatist tendencies of pro-Russian minded forces; recalls that Moldova has a European perspective and is therefore a strategic partner for the Union;

242. Regrets that Moldova's ongoing political instability inflicts long-lasting harm on the credibility of the country's democratic institutions, leading to limited progress towards democracy, a decrease in support of Union integration and an increase in pro-Russian political initiatives;

243. Calls on the Commission to continue its engagement in Moldova, with a view to strengthening the political association and economic integration between the Union and Moldova; stresses the importance of Union support, guidance, and monitoring on priority reforms aimed addressing the politicisation of state institutions, systemic corruption and public administration reform in order to achieve these objectives;

Part XIX — Special Report No 14/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘EU policy initiatives and financial support for Roma integration: significant progress made over the last decade, but additional efforts needed on the ground’

244. Is mindful of Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Council Directive 2000/43/EC (11) on racial equality, Council Directive 2000/78/EC (12) on equal treatment in employment and occupation, and Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (13) on freedom of movement and residence within the Union;

245. Welcomes the 2008 Council framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia (14), the Parliament resolution of 9 March 2011 on the EU strategy on Roma inclusion (15), the Commission communication of 5 April 2011 on ‘An EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020’ (COM(2011) 173), the Council recommendation of 9 December 2013 on effective Roma integration measures in the Member States (16), and the Commission communication of 17 June 2015 entitled ‘Report on the implementation of the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies 2015’(COM(2015) 299);

246. Points out that the integration of Roma depends on their inclusion and the extent to which they can enjoy the same rights as the entire body of European citizens, of which Roma fully form part;

247. Draws attention to the common basic principles on Roma inclusion (17), that is to say, the 10 common basic principles discussed at the first meeting of the European Platform for Roma inclusion, held in Prague in 2009, which were subsequently reproduced as an annex to the conclusions issued by the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council following its meeting of 8 June 2009;

248. Endorses the recommendations of the Court and urges the Commission and the Member States to implement them as quickly as possible;

249. Considers it disappointing that Roma inclusion and integration did not receive the necessary attention during the 2007-2013 programming period; calls, when the future Union strategic framework is drawn up, for greater account to be taken of the difficulties as regards inclusion and the discrimination with which Roma and other marginalised communities have to contend;

250. Considers it unfortunate that the Court's investigation failed to cover a wider range of countries where Roma make up a sizeable population, Slovakia, Greece, and France being examples in that category;

251. Calls on the Member States to determine which disadvantaged persons they wish to target, taking into account the needs of those persons and the challenges facing them, and to devote specific attention to Roma populations when allocating European funding;

252. Deplores the fact that, because of its complexity, cohesion policy funding, the only source of financing for Roma inclusion and integration projects and projects to combat discrimination, cannot play its proper role in promoting the inclusion of Roma and affording them access to rights;

253. Considers that each Member State should therefore adopt a road map with a view to gauging the real impact of the laws, regulations, administrative provisions, and funds intended to support Roma and pinpoint areas in which resources and administrative capacity need to be strengthened at national, regional, and local level in order to help set up and manage Roma inclusion and integration projects and projects to combat discrimination against them;

254. Calls on the Commission to provide detailed information about the funding available for Roma and to study the existing obstacles and take them into account for the purposes of simplifying funds;

255. Recognises the importance of making a selection, through the use of European structural and investment funds, among long-term projects for marginalised Roma communities;

256. Points to the need to establish more flexible selection criteria for projects to promote the inclusion of Roma and other marginalised communities;

257. Calls on the Commission to ensure, in the next programming period or when revising the operational programmes, that Roma integration goals charted in the national Roma integration strategies are reflected in the European structural and investment funds framework at every operational level;

258. Urges the Member States and the Commission to produce meaningful harmonised statistics on Roma so as to enable their social, administrative, and economic inclusion to be assessed more accurately;

259. Maintains that exclusion as regards housing, homelessness, exclusion in terms of education, unemployment, and discrimination in access to employment are often the key factors in marginalisation; points, therefore, to the importance of integrated initiatives, encompassing housing, education, and access to employment, to aid Roma and other marginalised communities;

260. Points out that one major obstacle to combating discrimination against Roma lies in the fact that very few discrimination cases are reported to organisations or authorities such as the police or social services; calls on the Member States, therefore, to adopt a strategy to remedy institutional discrimination and overcome Roma distrust of the authorities;

261. Calls on the Commission, in partnership with representatives of marginalised communities, and Roma in particular, and with ‘specialised institutions’, to set up training courses within Member State authorities in order to combat discriminatory practices and set a better example conducive to inclusion through healthy, constructive, and effective dialogue;

262. Points out that the Union has a programme for employment and social innovation, which is backed by EUR 900 million in funding for the period from 2014 to 2020 and focuses on vulnerable people and on combating poverty and social exclusion;

263. Asks the Commission to consider setting up a European fund specifically to foster the inclusion of Roma and other marginalised communities, and calls on the Commission to ensure that expenditure under such a fund would be properly supervised;

264. Calls on the Commission to establish a genuine European strategy for Roma inclusion, that is to say, a European action plan devised and implemented at every political and administrative level, involving representatives of the Roma community, and based on the core values of equality, access to rights, and non-discrimination; maintains that such a strategy must help to promote genuine inclusion of Roma and their access to education, employment, housing, culture, health care, participation in public affairs, training, and free movement within the Union;

265. Points out, however, that Member States have a responsibility to take every measure necessary to support Roma and ensure that national law and rights as a whole are enforced uniformly on their territory, with no discrimination whatsoever;

Part XX — Special report No 15/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Did the Commission affectively manage the Humanitarian aid provided to populations effected by conflicts in the African Great Lakes Region?’

266. Welcomes the special report dedicated to the review of the risks related to a results-oriented approach for Union development and cooperation action and sets out its observations and recommendations below;

267. Welcomes the findings according to which the humanitarian aid was managed effectively especially in a difficult working environment characterised by insecurity and unpredictability making efficient implementation a real challenge;

268. Calls on the Commission to continue its effort towards the linking of Relief Rehabilitation and Development, when local conditions permit; considers that this could potentially be supported through a permanent interservices platform linking relief, rehabilitation and development;. believes that such a platform could serve, among other purposes, for the identification of potential programmes to be combined; considers that integrated approaches with a clearly stated coordination of objectives and a coherent country/region strategy among all stakeholders should be set up wherever possible;

269. Calls furthermore on the Commission services to deliver a better transition from short-term humanitarian activities to long-term development interventions and for a coherent coordination not only among different Union actors but also with national priorities and other international organisations through a common strategy by means of a joint humanitarian and development framework;

270. Considers that a systemic appraisal of the real delivery of humanitarian interventions with an assessment of administrative costs in the region to be performed by focusing more on efficiency and with the development of possible benchmarks for common and regular costs items;

271. Encourages, wherever possible, a better adaptation of timeframes to the intervention environment to avoid long and costly extensions;

272. Calls on the relevant Union and UN institutions to fully respect and implement the Financial and Administrative Framework Agreement; asks the Commission to report to Parliament on the implementation of the agreement and related guidelines, and to identify areas needing improvement and make relevant proposals in this regard;

273. Recalls that the reporting from UN and International Organisations should ensure the most accurate traceability of funding possible and comparisons with operational aspects of the aid delivery agreed on at the beginning of the intervention, as well as also providing useful feedback to the Commission services; stresses the importance of partner organisations delivering timely reports to the Commission, to allow a swift management or adjustment of the humanitarian response and funding modalities;

274. Emphasises the need to improve the UN's accountability and transparency in relation to the use of Union resources and performance in implementing internationally agreed humanitarian and development strategic orientations and goals;

275. Asks the Commission to introduce results assessments at the level of humanitarian implementation plans to enable benchmarking of such plans and sharing best practices;

276. Regrets the prevalence of incomplete or insufficiently results-oriented information, which prevents the Commission from properly exercising its monitoring function;

277. Insists on the need to achieve the highest level of transparency and institutional accountability at all levels by ensuring access to exhaustive and sound budgetary information and financial data related to projects with Union funding, in order to allow Parliament's scrutiny;

Part XXI — Special report No 16/2016 of the Court entitled ‘EU education objectives: programmes aligned but shortcomings in performance measurement’

278. Welcomes the Court's report, endorses its recommendations and is pleased that the Commission accepts these and will consider them;

279. Welcomes the fact that the Commission has implemented previous Court recommendations in its 2014-2020 European structural and investment funds legal framework, thus ensuring better value for money, i.e. via a performance framework and reserve, ex ante conditionalities, common output and result indicators;

280. Stresses that a focus on performance and results is needed and is pleased that the new regulatory framework for the 2014-2020 programming period includes provisions for reporting on results from Member States;

281. Notes the shortcomings in performance measurement particularly in the setting of targets and output/result indicators at projects implemented in the 2007-2013 period; regrets that the result indicators are still not fully reliable and expects the weakness to be corrected for the second half of the 2014-2020 programming period;

282. Welcomes the trend in the reduction of the number of early school leavers and in tertiary education attainment; invites the Member States to align their specific national targets to the Union target for better achievement of the education objectives;

283. Notes that the target employment rate of recent graduates in the Union has been set at 82 % by 2020 and four of the five visited Member States have still not attained this target; points out that those four Member States faced a serious economic crisis from which they are now starting to recover; believes it is still possible for those Member States to attain and even surpass this target;

284. Emphasises the importance of maintaining a sufficient level of Union investment in education, given the strong link between educational attainment and employability;

Part XXII — Special Report No 17/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘The EU institutions can do more to facilitate access to their public procurement’

285. Welcomes the findings and recommendations of the Court's report;

286. Calls for increased transparency of public procurement within Union institutions, as well as at national level, through public availability of documents and data on public procurement; considers that the visibility of the Union institutions' procurement activities on the internet is poor, the information is insufficient, unclear and spread over many different websites;

287. Strongly supports the recommendation of the Court for the Union institutions to create a common electronic one-stop shop for their procurement activities, allowing economic operators to find all relevant information in a single online location and to interact with the Union institutions through this website; believes that procurement procedures, including communication on applicable rules, business opportunities, relevant procurement documents, submission of tenders and all other communication between institutions and economic operators should all be managed via such a one-stop shop;

288. Requests that the Commission's website on European funds paid to all Member States should be published in one of the three working languages of the institutions and include the same data for all Member States, at least the value, the object of the contract, the name of the contractor, the name of subcontractors (if any), the length of the contract and if any additional documents exist; points out that this will enable NGOs from all Member States and the citizens to observe how the money is spent and the cost efficiency of the projects;

289. Insists that it is the role of the contracting authorities to ensure a public procurement which is market-based, generating a sufficient amount of tenders and providing balanced access to all economic operators; agrees with the Court that for the ongoing 2016 revision of the Financial Regulation the Commission should propose a single rulebook for public procurement; emphasises that participation of small and medium sized enterprises should be explicitly encouraged, contrary to the current situation where only large operators are in advantage; considers that rules on market prospection prior to building contracts and on the language regime for procurement procedures should be included in the single rule book and deviations from the Procurement Directive (18) should be justified;

290. Recalls that the use of restricted procurement procedures by the contracting authorities discourages potential tenderers, blocks transparency and information on how the taxpayers' money is used; emphasises that the Council used restricted procedures for the vast majority of its tenders and that all Union institutions taken together awarded 25 % or more of their contracts following a restricted procedure between 2010 and 2014; requires that such procedures be used in a very limited number of cases, with proper justification;

291. Takes note that the Parliament publishes a complete annual list on its website of all its contractors who obtained contracts with a value of more than EUR 15 000, but that it does not publish all its contracts; encourages all institutions to make available full information on all contractors and contracts awarded through public procurement, including cases of direct awarding or restricted procedures;

292. Stresses the need for wider publicity and contract notices transparently published for all operators; recalls that, according to the findings of the Court, ‘the European Parliament used a negotiated procedure to conclude a “building contract” for EUR 133,6 million for a building in Brussels although the building did not exist when the contract was signed on 27 June 2012’, ignoring the rule that only existing buildings are covered by the exception from tendering on the broadest possible basis provided in Article 134(1) of the Rules of Application; strongly underlines that all unfinished buildings or buildings not yet constructed have to be subject to open and competitive award methods and believes that this policy should extend to all building contracts, given the complexity of contracts and the large amounts of funds involved;

293. Agrees with the Court that the Union institutions should divide contracts into lots wherever possible to increase participation in their procurement procedures; underlines that in 2014 the Council awarded a framework contract for 10 years, with a value of over EUR 93 million, for management, maintenance, repair and adaptation of technical installations in its present or future buildings to a single company without splitting it into lots; mentions that the Commission proceeded in the same way in 2015 for its 5-year contract ‘Your Europe Advice’ — the Union's free legal service, with a value of nearly EUR 9 million; emphasises that a lack of division along with an excessively long duration of framework contracts (10 or 7 years, with a record of 17 years on a contract awarded by the Council for the Justus Lipsus building) crushes competition, encourages opacity and potential corruption; asks therefore all institutions to put an end to these practices, which are fully opposed to the spirit of transparency and good practice that the Union should promote;

294. Requires that all Union institutions develop and implement adequate tools and methods for audits and evaluations, in order to acknowledge and signal the presence of irregularities; reiterates that better monitoring, detection, analysis, and reporting technology are needed in order to fight fraud and corruption; insists that this knowledge has to be made available to Member States as well; emphasises the central role of the whistleblowers in revealing wrongdoing and recalls that all European institutions and agencies must adopt internal binding rules for the protection of whistle-blowers, according to Article 22c of the Staff Regulations, entered into force on 1 January 2014;

295. Agrees with the Court that the Commission should propose amendments to the Union Financial Regulation to allow for a rapid review of complaints from economic operators who consider that they have been unfairly treated; notes that such a review should take place before economic operators turn to the European Ombudsman or to the Union courts;

296. Considers that law enforcement in public procurement can be ensured first and foremost by establishing competent and independent investigative bodies and agencies focusing on the investigation of corruption in public procurement; points out that Union institutions and Member States should share information and intelligence on public procurement among themselves as well as with OLAF, Europol, Eurojust and other investigative bodies; strongly recommends that the institutions with investigative powers, particularly OLAF, improve their case management systems to produce reports and statistics on the different types of allegations under investigation and the outcome of these investigations;

297. Welcomes the Court's conclusion that the Union institutions need to set up a single public repository of information related to their procurement contracts in order to allow effective ex post monitoring of their procurement activities;

298. Stresses that central collection of public procurement data helps build meaningful, accurate and detailed statistics with the objective of preventing, detecting and investigating corruption in public