RESOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT  
of 17 April 2013  
with observations forming an integral part of its Decisions on discharge in respect of the 
implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2011, Section 
III — Commission and executive agencies  
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT,  
— having regard to the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2011 (  1 ), 
— having regard to the consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for the financial year 2011 
(COM(2012) 436 – C7-0224/2012) (  2 ), 
— having regard to the Commission’s report on the follow-up to the discharge for the 2010 financial year 
(COM(2012) 585), and to the Commission staff working documents accompanying that report 
(SWD(2012) 340 and SWD(2012) 330),  
— having regard to the Commission communication of 6 June 2012 entitled ‘Synthesis of the Commis ­
sion’s management achievements in 2011’ (COM(2012) 281),  
— having regard to the Commission’s annual report to the discharge authority on internal audits carried 
out in 2011 (COM(2012) 563), and to the Commission staff working document accompanying that 
report (SWD(2012) 283),  
— having regard to the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors on the implementation of the budget 
concerning the financial year 2011, together with the institutions’ replies (  3 ) (Annual Report), and to the 
Court of Auditors’ special reports,  
— 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 2011 
pursuant to Article 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,  
— having regard to the Council’s recommendation of 12 February 2013 on discharge to be given to the 
Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2011 (05752/2013 – 
C7-0038/2013),  
— having regard to the Council’s recommendation of 12 February 2013 on discharge to be given to the 
executive agencies in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2011 
(05754/2013 – C7-0039/2013),  
— having regard to Articles 317, 318 and 319 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 
and Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty,  
— having regard to Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial 
Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (  5 ), and in particular Articles 
55, 145, 146 and 147 thereof,  
— 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 Council Regulation (EC) No 58/2003 of 19 December 2002 laying down the statute 
for executive agencies to be entrusted with certain tasks in the management of Community 
programmes (  7 ), and in particular Article 14(2) and (3) thereof,  
— having regard to Rule 76 of, and Annex VI to, its Rules of Procedure,EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/27  
( 1 ) OJ L 68, 15.3.2011.  
( 2 ) OJ C 348, 14.11.2012, p. 1.  
( 3 ) OJ C 344, 12.11.2012, p. 1.  
( 4 ) OJ C 348, 14.11.2012, p. 130.  
( 5 ) OJ L 248, 16.9.2002, p. 1.  
( 6 ) OJ L 298, 26.10.2012, p. 1.  
( 7 ) OJ L 11, 16.1.2003, p. 1.
— having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the opinions of the other 
committees concerned (A7-0116/2013),  
A. whereas Europe is facing an economic and financial crisis in addition to a crisis of confidence in its 
institutions, a situation which requires Parliament to be particularly rigorous when scrutinising the 
accounts of the Commission,  
B. whereas the Court of Auditors was, for the 18th time in a row, unable to grant a positive statement of 
assurance regarding the legality and regularity of the payments,  
C. whereas Member States are currently negotiating the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 
2014-2020,  
D. whereas in a situation of limitation of resources, caused by the economic and financial crisis, considers 
the need for the so-called ‘Intelligent solidarity’ - the use of Union funds to implement reforms, observe 
financial discipline and ensure political and economic stability,  
E. whereas, according to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Commission 
bears the ultimate responsibility for the implementation of the Union budget, while Member States are 
required to sincerely cooperate with the Commission to ensure that the appropriations are used in 
accordance with the principles of sound financial management,  
F. whereas Article 287 TFEU provides that ‘[t]he Court of Auditors shall provide the European Parliament 
and the Council with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and 
regularity of the underlying transactions …’,  
G. whereas performance audits measuring the extent to which spending has achieved the objectives 
pursued become ever more important,  
H. whereas the deficiencies in the customs system call for a better balance between reduced controls and 
an increase in  ex post  controls,  
I. whereas the Commission’s management should be presented fairly with a view to reinforcing public 
trust in the institutions,  
J. whereas the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs is an overarching strategy covering the activities 
of almost all the Commission services in charge of the internal policies, and whereas 2011 was the first 
full year during which the strategy was implemented,  
K. whereas the interinstitutional dialogue provided for in Article 318 TFEU should be the opportunity to 
stimulate a new culture of performance inside the Commission,  
L. whereas the Committee on Budgetary Control should be more closely involved in monitoring 
Commission spending in future; looks forward to closer cooperation with the Court of Auditors in 
order to produce wide-ranging proposals on improving efficiency in audit procedures,  
M. whereas the powers and resources of the Committee on Budgetary Control in the discharge procedure 
should be examined and set out in detail in an own-initiative report,  
Priority actions for the Commission  
1. Calls on the Commission, with a view to granting of the discharge, to present to Parliament an action 
plan for the achievement of the following priority actions:  
Communication of the Commission on the protection of the Union budget  
(a) The Commission should adopt annually, and for the first time in September 2013, a communi ­
cation to Parliament, the Council and the Court of Auditors with a view to making the impact of 
its preventive and corrective actions as regards the protection of the Union budget public; notes 
that it should, in particular, disclose in due time all suspensions, interruptions and retentions 
which aimed to prevent errors and all the amounts (in nominal terms) recovered per Member 
State, international organisation or third country in the course of the preceding year through 
financial corrections and recoveries for all management modes at the level of the Union and 
broken down by Member States; the Commission should demonstrate as far as possible that the 
financial corrections adequately compensated for errors made, and that they contributed to 
lasting improvements of the management and control systems;EN L 308/28 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
(b) Financial corrections should be made by the Commission for the total amount of the Union’s 
contribution of a programme if, due to errors or mismanagement of funds by national or 
regional authorities, the programme fails largely to achieve its aims, even when a part of the 
programme has been financed and funds have already been dispersed;  
(c) The Commission should provide the relevant data covering all the policies managed by the 
Commission in Note 6 ‘Financial corrections and recoveries’, attached to the accounts of the 
Union;  
(d) As regards the policies managed by multiannual programmes, the Commission should specify, 
upon the closure of the programming period, the impact of the recoveries and financial 
corrections made during that period on the error rate; notes, moreover, that the Commission 
should demonstrate that the financial corrections adequately compensated for errors made, and 
that they contributed to lasting improvements of the management and control systems;  
(e) The Commission should shoulder greater responsibility for national audit authorities and for 
control systems in those Member States in which most errors were detected; is of the opinion 
that the Commission should draw up a proposal in how far the certification and work of audit 
authorities in those Member States could be further improved; believes that the Commission 
should publish its findings, and integrate them into the midterm-review of relevant regulations 
and the MFF;  
Error rate in shared management  
Calls on the Commission to:  
(f) harmonise the practice of its services concerning the interruption/suspension of payments when 
significant deficiencies are detected at the level of the supervisory and control systems of Member 
States;  
(g) urge Member States to communicate to its services the draft eligibility rules in order to adapt 
national eligibility rules which are not compatible with the relevant Union rules and to intensify 
the controls on the declaration of costs and the effectiveness of the first-level checks;  
(h) collect information from Member States concerning the degree to which national rules render 
Union legislation on budget management terms unnecessarily complicated (‘gold-plating’) and 
report to Parliament by October 2013; recalls that an infringement of those national rules 
represents an error in budget management and that the Commission is ultimately responsible 
for errors in implementing the Union budget (Article 317 TFEU); requests that this information is 
sent to the national parliaments once a year and that Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary 
Control is duly informed;  
(i) support the management and control authorities of the Member States in identifying the systemic 
sources of errors and in particular in ensuring compliant implementation of public procurement 
rules and give guidance in the form of motivated opinions to those authorities in their simplifi ­
cation efforts; those opinions will be made public;  
(j) apply the principle of proportionality, without underestimating the rules to reduce administrative 
burdens and facilitate streamlining of procedures; notes that an additional step towards simplifi ­
cation is the obligatory use of the electronic project application and reporting, as well as the 
unification and standardisation of documents and procedures for management and implemen ­
tation of the operational programmes;  
(k) harmonise the criteria used by its services for making reservations in its annual activity report 
and the different methodologies used to quantify public procurement errors in the two policy 
areas of agriculture and cohesion policy;  
(l) speed up the audit and financial correction procedures followed by its own services and in 
particular, consider merging the different stages of the ‘contradictory’ procedure leading to a 
financial correction;  
(m) evaluate the progress made in the financial management under the policy groups of the budget of 
the Union with a view to arriving at a positive statement of assurance and to report about this 
evaluation by March 2014 in the context of the annual activity reports drafted by the Directors- 
General and the Synthesis report on the Commission’s management achievements for 2013;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/29
DG AGRI  
(n) DG AGRI should align its practices for the interruption of payments with the best practices of 
other directorates-general or services as well as put forward proposals for enhanced application 
and use of suspensions in the policy area of agriculture and rural development;  
(o) Taking into account the legal framework, DG AGRI should systematically interrupt and suspend 
payments when the prime level controls reveal that they are materially affected by error; the 
payments should be resumed only if sufficient appropriate evidence gathered on the spot proves 
that the weaknesses have been remedied;  
(p) The Commission should report by the end of June 2013 on the progress made by the working 
group set up by DG AGRI to assess the root causes of Rural Development errors and develop 
corrective action for the current and future programming periods; that report should be sent to 
the Member States, national parliaments and Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural 
Development so that they can analyse the causes of errors, deliver non-binding opinions and 
submit proposals for countering those errors;  
(q) DG AGRI should take all necessary measures to support the Member States’ efforts to eliminate 
from their programmes those conditions that are intrinsically prone to creating implementation 
and control difficulties;  
DG REGIO  
(r) The Commission should maintain its original proposals for the general provisions of the 2014- 
2020 programming period in cohesion policy and should insist, vis-à-vis the Member States, on 
the absolute need to introduce in the new legislation the principles of net financial corrections (  1 ) 
as well as streamlined procedures and conditions under which payments can be interrupted or 
suspended;  
(s) The Commission should also use, as far as possible, net financial corrections to correct serious 
errors in the current programming period pursuant to Article 99 et seq. of Council Regulation 
(EC) No 1083/2006 (  2 ); in particular net financial corrections should be applied at the closure of 
the programming period;  
(t) In addition, the Commission should defend its initial position not to allow the secondary 
selection of projects physically completed or fully implemented before the funding application 
(so-called ‘retrospective projects’) for the funding period 2014-2020 (  3 ); 
(u) DG REGIO should fully align its payment practices with the best practices of other directorates- 
general or services, and continue making direct and full use of the legal instruments provided for 
by the regulations, especially the interruption of payments or whenever necessary by the 
suspension of operational programmes;  
(v) Calls for more stringent monitoring and conditions in the case of Member States which mani ­
festly breach Union provisions on budgetary and competition law (particularly with regard to the 
award of public contracts); calls for systematic suspension of payments for the relevant Structural 
Fund programmes where Union law is breached until rules are complied with, so that use of the 
funds in accordance with Union rules is guaranteed;EN L 308/30 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down common provisions on the 
European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund, the European Agricultural Fund 
for Rural Development and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund covered by the Common Strategic Framework 
and laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the 
Cohesion Fund and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 (COM(2011) 615/2), Article 136 et seq.  
( 2 ) Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 of 11 July 2006 laying down general provisions on the European Devel ­
opment Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 (OJ 
L 210, 31.7.2006, p. 25).  
( 3 ) COM(2011) 615/2, Article 55(4).
(w) Calls for a tougher suspension policy for the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and 
Cohesion Fund (CF), like that already successfully applied to European Social Fund payments, thus 
enabling early action to prevent any improper use of Structural Fund monies and underpinning, 
from the outset, the zero-tolerance approach by the Commission;  
(x) In particular, DG REGIO should systematically interrupt the payments and suspend the 
programmes when the prime level controls reveal that they are materially affected by error; 
the payments should be resumed only if there is sufficient and reliable evidence that weaknesses 
have been remedied;  
Error rate in centralised management  
DG Research  
(y) By the end of June 2013, the Commission should present a report to Parliament assessing the 
impact of the simplification measures introduced in 2011;  
(z) That report should also assess the improvements announced by the Commission in respect of the  
ex ante  control and the  ex post  audit strategies and of the improvement in the guidance on the 
most common errors given to participants in the seventh framework research programme and to 
auditors;  
(aa) In that report, the Commission should explain whether the measures taken to reduce the audit 
burden, generated by the fact that seven Authorising Officers by Delegation are responsible for 
the Research budget, have been effective and, if not, propose other solutions;  
Evaluation report (Article 318 TFEU) and enhanced use of performance audits  
(ab) The Commission services should develop a new culture of performance, defining in their 
management plan a number of targets and indicators meeting the requirements of the Court 
of Auditors in terms of relevance, comparability and reliability; furthermore performance indi ­
cators and targets should be fully integrated in all proposals for new policies and programmes;  
(ac) Asks the Commission to take full account of the remarks and requests formulated in the 
‘Response of the European Court of Auditors to the Commission’s second Article 318 evaluation 
report’;  
(ad) Calls on the Commission, until the midterm review in the various areas of policy and 
programmes, to propose a clear definition of European added value; calls for a review of the 
programmes with the aim of avoiding national and regional displacement effects and genuinely 
only financing measures which could not be carried out without impetus from the Union;  
(ae) In their annual activity reports, the services should measure their performance in summarising the 
results achieved when contributing to the main policies pursued by the Commission; this ‘depart ­
mental’ performance will be complemented by a global evaluation of the performance of the 
Commission in the evaluation report provided for by Article 318 TFEU;  
(af) The Commission should modify the structure of the abovementioned evaluation report, distin ­
guishing the internal policies from the external ones and focussing, within the section relating to 
internal policies, on the Europe 2020 strategy as being the economic and social policy of the 
Union; the Commission should place the emphasis on the progress made in the achievement of 
the flagship initiatives;  
(ag) Expects that in the framework of a new and enhanced policy on performance, all evaluation 
reports done or paid for by the Commission will be made available in full to Parliament, which 
may decide to make them available on its website for consultation;  
Revenues and traditional own resources  
In order to ensure proper protection of the Union’s financial interests, and with a view to equipping 
the Union with sufficient own resources for growth, the Commission should:EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/31
(ah) provide Parliament, in time for the 2012 discharge procedure with an evaluation of the cost of 
postponing the full application of the Modernised Customs Code (MCC), which would quantify 
the budgetary consequences of such postponement;  
(ai) collect reliable data on the customs and VAT gap in the Member States and report every six 
months to Parliament in this regard;  
(aj) identify and implement actions which would increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the 
collection of customs duties and VAT in the Member States; the Commission and the Member 
States should implement the Court of Auditors’ recommendation in the Special Report 
No 13/2011 (  1 ); 
(ak) identify the channels and schemes allowing for tax evasion and tax avoidance, in particular by 
multinationals and through post box companies, and promote appropriate countermeasures; 
welcomes in this context the OECD report on tax base erosion and profit shifting and calls 
on the Commission to cooperate with the OECD who will establish an action plan on how to 
address this problem by July 2013;  
(al) raise the Member States’ and public awareness, in the context of the negotiations on the Multi ­
annual Financial Framework, that effective revenue collection remains an essential feature of 
sound management of public finances, including the fact that uncollected revenue aspects have 
an impact on the availability of the Union’s own resources, the economic situation of the 
Member States and the internal market and commission a study which would calculate the 
potential financial benefits for the Member States in tax revenue terms if an equal level 
playing field against tax evasion and tax avoidance throughout the Union should be created;  
2. Is alarmed by the magnitude of offshore financial activities, as revealed in the recent offshore leaks; 
calls on the Commission to take urgent measures to eliminate these possibilities of diverting 
thousands of billions of euro away from the normal financial circuit in order primarily to avoid 
tax and to hide illegal funds from the tax authorities in the Member States;  
3. Strongly suggests that the Commission should take measures to ensure that all banking activities 
related to advising on, and setting up, offshore structures are made illegal and that no bank within the 
European Union involved in such activities will or can receive European funding under any scheme or 
benefit from national support measures;  
4. Expects to receive, within two months, draft legislative proposals from the Commission to end the 
practice of the use of tax havens by individuals, companies and even public institutions;  
Follow-up to the 2010 discharge resolution  ( 2 ) 
Monitoring of financial engineering instruments  
5. Welcomes the follow-up given by the Commission to Parliament’s request for greater transparency as 
regards the Financial Engineering Instruments (FEIs), in particular by making the reporting by Member 
States on financial and implementation issues in the relevant legislation a compulsory procedure (  3 ), 
and notes that the Summary report on the progress made in financing and implementing FEIs 
announced by the Commission in its report on the follow-up to the discharge for the 2010 
financial year (COM(2012) 585) was transmitted in due time to Parliament; further notes that the 
latter provides data on the description of the FEIs and their implementation arrangements, identifi ­
cation of the implementing entities and amounts of assistance paid to and by the FEIs;EN L 308/32 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) Special Report No 13/2011 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘Does the control of customs procedure 42 prevent and 
detect VAT evasion?’  
( 2 ) Resolution of the European Parliament of 10 May 2012 with observations forming an integral part of its Decision on 
discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2010, 
Section III — Commission and executive agencies (OJ L 286, 17.10.2012, p. 31).  
( 3 ) Revision of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006, Commission Regulation (EC) No 1974/2006 as to rural devel ­
opment; see also Commission proposal COM(2011) 615/2 concerning Common provisions of the structural 
instruments for 2014-2020.
6. Notes that the amount of structural funds implemented through FEIs has continued to increase over 
the period 2007-2013, in particular for instruments targeting enterprises; points out that more than 
90 % of the amounts actually disbursed to final recipients went to enterprises; asks the Commission to 
clarify what percentage of the amounts actually dispersed went to truly private enterprises, as opposed 
to majority publicly owned enterprises;  
7. Notes with concern that FEIs for urban development and energy efficiency/renewable energies account 
for only 17 % of the amount paid to all FEIs at the end of 2011 and, moreover, that the flow into 
concrete urban projects remained slow;  
8. Endorses the lessons learned by the Commission pursuant to the abovementioned summary report as 
to the Member States’ reporting, as follows:  
— the process of the collection of data by managing authorities and their transmission to the 
Commission should start as early as possible,  
— Member States should be encouraged to provide input covering more than just the amounts 
committed to the funds and the number and type of final recipients,  
— the Commission should provide more guidance to the Member States;  
9. Notes that the Commission has charged a group of experts (  1 ) to draft a report on the use of the ERDF 
in support of FEIs; considers this to be a first step and is worried that the expert evaluation network’s 
analysis reveals a number of serious problems, for example, the lack of evidence to determine whether 
the scale of support matches the size of the gaps in the market for loans and equity finance; the lack 
of evidence from which to assess whether the size of venture capital funds set up with ERDF support 
is large enough to be viable; the paucity of data on the costs of setting up and operating FEIs relative 
to non-repayable grants; and the complexity of the regulations and uncertainty surrounding their 
interpretation;  
10. Calls on the Commission to take concrete steps to significantly improve the use of the FEIs with a 
view to better protecting the Union’s financial interests;  
11. Reiterates that Parliament invited the Commission to evaluate objectively and critically the experiences 
with FEIs in the Cohesion policy for the programming period 2007-2013, to provide a risk 
assessment considering different FEIs separately, as well as taking into account the risk structure of 
beneficiaries of the FEIs, and to report annually to Parliament, in time for the respective discharge 
procedure, on the use of FEIs in Member States, including comparable indicators on the effectiveness, 
efficiency and economy of FEIs, and also on how the Commission coordinates, ensures consistency 
and mitigates the risk of overlapping across the policy areas;  
Accountability chain/cascade  
12. Regrets that the Commission constantly ignores Parliament’s long standing request to add the 
responsible Commissioner’s signature to the annual activity reports of his/her related Directorate- 
General; notes, however, that the Synthesis report is adopted by the College of Commissioners and 
contains a specific statement emphasising the Commission’s final responsibility for the management of 
its authorising officers on the basis of assurances and reservations made by them in their annual 
activity reports; is therefore of the opinion that the College, when adopting the Synthesis report, took 
note of the problems in the respective directorates-general and can be held responsible;  
13. Calls on the Commission to further improve the quality and comparability of the annual activity 
reports;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/33  
( 1 ) See the synthesis report made by Terry Ward and Applica sprl on the Use of the ERDF to support financial engin ­
eering instruments with the contribution of the expert evaluation network delivering policy analysis on the 
performance of Cohesion policy 2007-2013.
14. Welcomes the fact that the Commission has given Parliament access to Member States’ annual 
summaries; deplores the fact, however, that only 17 Member States gave the Commission permission 
to do so; asks the Commission to communicate which steps and measures it will take to ensure that 
the remaining 10 Member States will also grant their permission;  
The use of pre-financing  
15. Welcomes the new rules introduced in Financial Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 about the 
regular clearing of pre-financing and encourages the Commission to continue its efforts to follow the 
recommendations of the Court of Auditors as regards the relevant accounting data and methods;  
The imposition of effective sanctions in the big spending areas  
16. Recognises that the Commission’s proposals for the 2014-2020 programming period largely met 
Parliament’s concerns expressed in its resolution accompanying the discharge decision for the 
budget execution in 2008 (  1 ), with the proposed introduction of net financial corrections to 
Member States as well as streamlined procedures and conditions under which payments can be 
interrupted or suspended; notes that those proposals also clarify certain eligibility rules and clearly 
prohibit the possibility for managing authorities to select projects physically completed or fully 
implemented before the funding application (so-called ‘retrospective projects’);  
17. Calls on the Commission to investigate the possibilities of setting up a correctional system for error 
prone spending areas, in which the total material value of errors in year n will be partially or entirely 
deducted from the yearly reimbursement requests made by accrediting organisations depending on the 
severity of the irregularities;  
The audit work of the Court of Auditors  
18. Recalls that Article 287 TFEU provides: ‘The Court of Auditors shall provide the European Parliament 
and the Council with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and 
regularity of the underlying transactions (…)’;  
19. Points out that in addition to delivering one opinion on the reliability of the accounts, the Court of 
Auditors delivers three on the legality and regularity of the underlying operations; takes the view that 
this plethora of opinions makes it more difficult for Members of the European Parliament to assess the 
Commission’s implementation of the budget;  
20. Points out that the Court of Auditors establishes, on the basis of its audits, the most likely error rate, 
which in 2011 stood at 3,9 % for payments; points out that on the basis of international auditing 
standards, the Court of Auditors takes 2 % as the materiality threshold as regards the generally 
acceptable rate of errors and that, if the most likely error rate is above this threshold, the Court of 
Auditors will give an adverse opinion;  
21. Points out that in accordance with international audit standards, the external auditor should set the 
materiality threshold for errors independently;  
22. Emphasises that a distinction must be drawn between errors and fraud and considers that in the vast 
majority of cases, errors stem from administrative mistakes, many of which are linked to the 
complexity of the Union and national rules, which can be corrected; reminds the Commission, 
however, that the current error rate is still unacceptably high and that Parliament has a zero- 
tolerance approach to errors;  
23. Highlights the fact that an error rate as such does not give a comprehensive view of the effectiveness 
of Union policies; is of the opinion, therefore, that compliance audits should be supplemented by 
performance audits evaluating the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of Union policy instruments; 
points to the fact that the U.S. Government Accountability Office concentrates more on performance 
than on compliance audits;EN L 308/34 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) Resolution of the European Parliament of 5 May 2010 with observations forming an integral part of its Decisions on 
discharge in respect of the implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2008, Section 
III – Commission and executive agencies (OJ L 252, 25.9.2010, p. 39).
24. Observes that there are some differences of views between the Court of Auditors and the Commission 
with regard to the way in which errors should be calculated, in particular as to whether pre-financing 
should be included or excluded, as to the handling of quantifiable and non-quantifiable errors and as 
to the way in which recoveries and financial corrections should be considered in the overall 
assessment of the financial impact of errors and the corrective capacity of systems; is of the 
opinion that the different approaches mirror the different roles respectively played by the institutions, 
namely the role of auditor on the one hand and manager on the other; requests that the Court of 
Auditors consider the possibility of separating these contested different categories of error rates in its 
next annual report and to qualify the recovery and financial corrections policies/results per sector;  
25. Understands that in the course of time, expertise and methodology can change; insists, however, that 
audit results need to remain comparable in order to enable Parliament to make a political assessment 
over a longer period of time;  
26. Calls, therefore, for closer cooperation between national audit institutions and the European Court of 
Auditors in connection with the auditing of shared-management arrangements, pursuant to 
Article 287(3) TFEU;  
27. Proposes that consideration should be given to having the national audit institutions deliver, in a 
capacity as independent external auditors and in accordance with international audit standards, 
national audit certificates in respect of the management of Union funds; these certificates would be 
submitted to the Member State governments with a view to their being produced as part of the 
discharge process, on the basis of an appropriate interinstitutional procedure to be established;  
The Court of Auditors’ statement of assurance  
Accounts – clean opinion  
28. Welcomes the fact that the annual accounts of the Union for the financial year 2011 present fairly, 
and in all material respects, the position of the Union as at 31 December 2011, and the results of its 
operations and its cash flows for the then completed year;  
Legality and regularity of revenue – clean opinion  
29. Notes with satisfaction that revenue underlying the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2011 is 
legal and regular in all material respects;  
Legality and regularity of commitments – clean opinion  
30. Notes with satisfaction that commitments underlying the accounts for the year ended 31 December 
2011 are legal and regular in all material respects;  
Legality and regularity of payments – adverse opinion  
31. Deeply regrets that payments remain materially affected by error;  
32. Understands that the basis for the adverse opinion of the Court of Auditors is the observation that the 
supervisory and control systems are only partially effective and that, as a result, payments are affected 
by a most likely error rate of 3,9 %;  
33. Notes with concern that the policy groups agriculture; market and direct support; rural development, 
environment, fisheries and health; regional policy, energy and transport; employment and social 
affairs, as well as research and other internal policies, are materially affected by error;  
34. Recalls that the most likely error rate for payments in the financial year 2010 was estimated at 3,7 % 
and in the financial year 2009 at 3,3 %; is dismayed about this increase because it reverses the positive 
trend observed in the years 2007, 2008 and 2009; calls on the Commission, therefore, to take the 
necessary steps to achieve a trend that shows a consistent decrease in the error rate; emphasises that 
Parliament is of the opinion that [r]eaching this target is an essential part of getting full value for EU 
expenditure in the future and progressing towards a positive DAS’ (  1 );EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/35  
( 1 ) Paragraph 4 of Parliament’s abovementioned Resolution of 5 May 2010.
35. Attributes this development mainly to the increase of the most likely error rate in the area of 
agriculture, and is concerned in particular about the high level of error in the rural development 
where the most likely error rate reported was 7,7 %;  
36. Calls on the Court of Auditors to adapt its special reports on specific fields of policy more than 
previously to facilitating comparisons with past periods;  
Council recommendation  
37. Regrets that the Council continues to refuse to cooperate with Parliament with regards to the Council 
discharge; believes that this leaves the Committee on Budgetary Control with very few instruments and 
that eventually, the Committee is forced to introduce its questions and requests for information about 
the budget of the Council to the Commission;  
38. Notes that the Council recommends to give discharge to the Commission in respect of the imple ­
mentation of the general budget of the Union for the financial year 2011; notes that the Netherlands, 
Sweden and the United Kingdom have voted against granting discharge to the Commission for the 
execution of the Union’s budget for the financial year 2011; takes notice of these countries’ obser ­
vations:  
— for the 18th consecutive time, the Court of Auditors was unable to grant a positive unqualified 
statement of assurance,  
— emphasising the fact that the credibility of Union spending depends on sound financial 
management at all levels, orderly accounting and transparent accountability of all relevant actors,  
— pointing out that 80 % of the Union budget is spent under the system of shared management by 
Member States,  
— regretting that only four out of seven Member States’ audit authorities, assessed by the Court of 
Auditors, were considered effective,  
— calling on all Member States to provide full, transparent and accurate data as part of their annual 
summaries,  
— encouraging the Commission to continue driving better financial management by all Member 
States, including strict application of sanctions such as suspensions and interruptions;  
39. Notes in this context the high number of the Commission’s reservations concerning the ERDF/CF 
management and control systems for the period 2007-2013 amongst others in the Netherlands and 
the United Kingdom; encourages the Council to draw conclusions from the observations by the 
Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom by conducting a peer review of each of the Member 
States’ financial management and quality of performance;  
Horizontal issues  
Responsibilities of the Commission and the Member States in shared management  
40. Emphasises that in accordance with Article 317 TFEU, the Commission is ultimately responsible for 
the implementation of the Union’s budget; points out that where the Commission implements the 
budget under shared management, implementation tasks are delegated to Member States pursuant to 
Article 53b of the Financial Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002;EN L 308/36 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
41. Stresses that in this respect, the responsibility of the Directors-General is a cornerstone of the 
Commission’s present system for managing Union funds and emphasises the importance of fairly 
representing the management performances in their annual activity report;  
42. Recalls Parliament’s proposal, contained in its 2010 discharge resolution, for a full-time Commissioner 
for Budgetary Control in the 2014-2019 Commission;  
43. Expects that Member States are fully aware of their obligations, pursuant to Article 4(3) of the Treaty 
on European Union and pursuant to the principle of sincere cooperation, to assist in an active and 
effective way the Union in carrying out tasks which flow from the Treaties;  
44. Insists in this context on the importance of Article 53b of the Financial Regulation (EC, Euratom) 
No 1605/2002, which provides that, when implementing the budget, the Member States are to take 
all necessary measures, including legislative, regulatory and administrative measures, to protect the 
Union’s financial interests; stresses in this respect that Article 59(2) of the new Financial Regulation 
(EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 even specifies that these measures should include the following:(a) 
ensuring that actions financed from the budget are implemented correctly and effectively and in 
accordance with the applicable sector-specific rules for that purpose and (b) preventing, detecting 
and correcting irregularities and fraud;  
45. Notes that the current system does not ensure a full transparency of the beneficiaries of ERDF/CF 
support; in the current framework, the Commission provides a portal with access to lists of bene ­
ficiaries available on national websites, which are only in the respective national language and without 
following common criteria; expects the future regulation covering the structural instruments to ensure 
that Member States provide the data on the final beneficiaries of ERDF/CF funds to be published on 
the Commission’s official website in one of the three working languages of the Union and based on a 
set of common criteria to allow comparison and detection of errors;  
46. Points to the existence of significant differences in Member States’ administrative performance in the 
field of revenue and expenditure in shared management, especially related to detecting irregularities, 
fraud and errors and financial follow-up in both the customs field and spending of Union funds; notes 
that the Commission so far monitors administrative performance in a reactive way and on case level 
and thus, does not perform sufficient trend analysis to identify fields of risk; calls on the Commission 
to apply the method of trend analysis to identify financial risks and to take measures to improve 
Member States’ administrative performance;  
47. Welcomes the fact that, in accordance with Article 59(3), (4) and (5) of the new Financial Regulation 
(EU, Euratom) No 966/2012, Member States management authorities are in future to be required 
annually to provide the Commission with their accounts accompanied by a management declaration, 
an annual summary of their final audit report and of controls and an opinion from an independent 
audit body;  
48. Is convinced that the above mentioned declarations, in combination with the introduction of self- 
critical deliberation in the Council, which is lacking until now, and an even-handed and honest and 
open peer review among Member States would result in better and more effective budget execution, 
increase the performance of policies, programmes and projects and which will help to reinforce the 
solidarity between Member-States and replace mutual distrust, a result which is preferable to budget 
cuts to the detriment of economic recovery and the trust of the Union citizens in a common Europe;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/37
49. Welcomes the fact that Member States may, at the appropriate level, publish the above information, 
and – in addition – provide declarations signed at an appropriate level based on that information; calls 
on the Commission to assist the Member States in providing those voluntary management declar ­
ations as referred to in Article 59(5) of the new Financial Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 by 
promoting best practices; insists that Parliament should receive both the management declarations and 
the voluntary declarations;  
50. Notes that the Commission should give guidance to Member States to draft meaningful annual 
summaries; notes that for this purpose, information given on operational programmes under 
shared management should be standardised as regards form and content; annual summaries should 
be put at the disposal of Parliament and should not only be made available in the language of the 
Member State, thus increasing transparency and accountability;  
51. Notes, however, that neither the Court of Auditors nor the Commission considers the annual 
summaries to be a valuable source of information at this stage for the purposes of assessing 
compliance by, or the performance of, beneficiaries; reiterates its request that the Commission 
should analyse the strengths and weaknesses of national control systems on the basis of the 
annual summaries received; considers that this situation is unacceptable and demands that the 
Commission take immediate action to ensure that the next annual summaries are useful for 
assessing the performance of beneficiaries;  
52. Points out that the annual summaries provided by the Member States ‘in [their] current form [have] 
been seen to provide little added value’ and that ‘the compliance elements of the current annual 
summary simply duplicate information readily available from other sources’ (  1 ); urges, therefore, all 
Member States to increase the usefulness of their annual summaries by including an overall analysis of 
the results and an overall level of assurance statement to demonstrate their commitment to the sound 
financial management of Union funds and transparency; urges Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, 
Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland and Spain in particular to follow 
without delay the example of the 15 Member States that have included an ‘overall level of assurance 
statement’ in their annual summaries for structural actions in the European Social Fund (ESF) and the 
ERDF (  2 ) in order for the Committee on Budgetary Control to benefit from this information during the 
2012 discharge procedure; expects that those Member-States who will not submit such a statement in 
time will submit a comprehensive statement explaining the reasons why;  
53. Calls on the Member States to issue national management declarations at the appropriate political 
level and asks the Commission to establish a template for such a declaration;  
54. Calls on the Commission to establish in the short term, in cooperation with Member States, a model 
for national management declarations which will make them meaningful and comparable; calls on the 
Commission to openly provide its opinion on those declarations; takes the view that such declarations 
should, inter alia, certify criteria (such as true and fair accounts, the effectiveness of management and 
control systems and the legality and regularity of underlying transactions) and specify the scope of 
assurance reservations and disclaimers; asks the Commission to present proposals for decreasing the 
burden of controls for those Member States or regions that perform consistently well, according to the 
annual reports of the Court of Auditors and to their own national management declarations; is of the 
opinion that the Court of Auditors and the Commission should be able to take account of the 
substance of national management declarations in their audit work;  
55. Notes the details set out on the following scoreboard regarding the two initiatives relating to the 
contributions of Member States in improving the effectiveness of shared management:EN L 308/38 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) See the reply given by Commissioner Andor to the written question 18 in preparation of the hearing in the 
Committee on Budgetary Control on 26 November 2012 together with the 2011 Annual Activity Report — 
Directorate-General Regional Policy, page 84.  
( 2 ) See the Commission’s Synthesis report, point 3.3, in footnote 9 on page 11 of COM(2012) 281.
Scoreboard  
National management Declarations  ‘Overall level of assurance statement’ in 
the Annual Summaries for structural 
actions  
Austria  No  No  
Belgium  No  No  
Bulgaria  No  Yes  
Cyprus  No  Yes  
Czech Republic  No  Yes  
Denmark  Yes  Yes  
Estonia  No  Yes  
Finland  No  Yes  
France  No  Yes  
Germany  No  No  
Greece  No  Yes  
Hungary  No  Yes  
Ireland  No  No  
Italy  No  No  
Latvia  No  No  
Lithuania  No  No  
Luxembourg  No  No  
Malta  No  No  
Netherlands  Yes  No  
Poland  No  No  
Portugal  No  Yes  
Romania  No  Yes  
Slovakia  No  Yes  
Slovenia  No  Yes  
Spain  No  No  
Sweden  Yes  Yes  
United Kingdom  Yes  Yes  
Reliability of Commission management representations  
56. Notes that the total number of reservations included by the Directors-General of the Commission in 
their annual activity reports increased to 27 in 2011 from 17 in 2010 and that the estimated total 
financial impact of reservations increased to EUR 1 959 million or 1,5 % of the payments made in 
2011 (2010: EUR 423 million, corresponding to 0,3 %);EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/39
57. Is concerned that those developments reflect a high risk of errors in some areas, such as rural 
development, cohesion or the seventh framework programme as recognised by the Directors- 
General of the Commission, and corroborated by the audit results of the Court of Auditors;  
58. Takes note of the guidance given by the Secretary-General of the Commission and the Director- 
General of DG Budget to the Directors-General and heads of services of the Commission on how to 
calculate the residual error rate, which led to an improvement in some annual activity reports as 
pointed out by the Court of Auditors;  
59. Regrets, nevertheless, that the Court of Auditors found weaknesses in those instructions and their 
implementation, in particular as regards the residual error rate; urges the Commission, as a result of 
this, to adapt its guidance as an immediate priority;  
60. Recognises the progress made by the Commission in determining the extent to which transactions 
remain affected by error, but notes with disappointment that the Court of Auditors concluded that the 
residual error rate is not yet a reliable indicator;  
61. Encourages the Commission to make progress in disclosing more precise and reliable data concerning 
recoveries and financial corrections and to present information reconciling as far as possible the year 
in which payment is made, the year in which the related error is detected and the year in which 
recoveries or financial corrections are disclosed in the notes to the accounts (  1 ); 
62. Welcomes the report by the Commission on financial corrections, including the amount actually 
recovered which was returned to the budget at closure 2000-2006 in regional policy which shows 
the impact of the financial corrections made during the programming period and at closure on the 
overall error rate of the 2000-2006 programming period;  
63. Calls on the Commission to extend this practice of reporting to the other policies managed by 
multiannual programmes;  
64. Recommends, in accordance with the view expressed by the Court of Auditors, that a clear link be 
established between amounts included in annual activity reports, in particular for establishing the 
residual error rate, and information on recoveries/financial corrections presented in the accounts;  
65. Notes that the Commission is able to provide an overview of the corrections of errors and irregu ­
larities made in 2011, in particular in that part of the budget that is implemented under the shared 
management mode (  2 ); 
66. Suggests to the Commission that it should request its Directors-General to systematically gather those 
data and publish them in their annual activity reports;  
67. Calls on the Commission to issue in time for the respective discharge procedure annual communi ­
cations to Parliament, the Council and the Court of Auditors listing, by country and programme, 
financial corrections and recoveries collected, in order to demonstrate its performance in the 
protection of the Union’s budget; calls on the Commission, on this basis, to draw up a performance 
ranking;EN L 308/40 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) See the Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, Annex 1.2, point 2.  
( 2 ) See Note 6 in the consolidated annual accounts of the European Union 2011.
68. Notes with concern that the abovementioned Note 6 attached to the consolidated accounts covers 
only financial corrections and recoveries performed at Union level, and that information on with ­
drawals, recoveries and pending recoveries of structural funds made by the Member States is not 
disclosed for reliability reasons ‘since doubts remain as to the quality and completeness of data 
submitted by some Member States and/or for some programmes’; calls on the Commission to 
make annually public in a communication all the amounts corrected the preceding year through 
financial corrections and recoveries for all management modes at the level of the Union and by 
the Member States;  
69. Is worried that the Commission itself confirms in the said Note 6 the assessment made by the Court 
of Auditors on the lack of reliability of supervisory and control systems of the Member States, and 
deeply regrets that this could affect the reliability of Commission management representations; calls 
on the Commission to ensure that data communicated by Member States are complete and fully 
reliable;  
70. Recalls in this context that, by adopting the Synthesis report on the basis of the assurances and 
reservations made by its Directors-General and heads of services in their annual activity reports, the 
Commission takes overall political responsibility for management of the Union budget (  1 ); 
71. Welcomes the improvements brought to the overall opinion issued by the Commission’s Internal 
Auditor, which also underpin the Synthesis report, but notes that the positive opinion given by the 
Internal Auditor is based in particular on the assurance given in the annual activity reports by senior 
management of the Commission;  
72. Consequently, reiterates its previous demand that the Commission establish reliable and objective 
annual activity reports;  
Responsibility of Member States  
73. Notes that the two policy areas prone to the highest error rates (rural development, environment, 
fisheries and health as well as regional policy, energy and transport) are mainly implemented under 
shared management, and regrets that the estimated most likely error rates amount to 7,7 % and 6 % 
respectively;  
74. Emphasises that the President of the Court of Auditors observed that ‘national authorities operate the 
first – and most important – line of defence in protecting the financial interests of EU citizens and 
that there needs to be a greater degree of commitment on the part of national authorities to the 
management and control of EU money’ (  2 ); underlines in this context the co-responsibility of the 
Member States for better spending; considers, in addition, that the active involvement of the national 
parliaments, through respective committees for oversight the use of Union taxpayer’s money in the 
Member States (following the example of the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control), not only 
at the level of the political and expert monitoring but also in the programming process of the new 
cohesion policy, would lead to a lower error rate level, better transparency and democratic legitimacy 
of the process of Union funds absorption;  
75. Deplores the fact that in 62 % of the audited regional policy transactions affected by error and in 76 % 
of the ESF audited transactions, sufficient information was available for the Member State authorities 
to have detected and corrected at least some of these errors before claiming reimbursement from the 
Commission and that in rural development, the Court of Auditors found that on-the-spot checks had 
not always been carried out properly; therefore calls on the Member States and the Commission to 
urgently reinforce first-level checks to address this unacceptably high level of mismanagement;  
76. Calls on the Council and the Coreper to see to it that on a regular basis, national control systems, in 
particular, and the co-responsibility of the Member States for better spending, in general, are put as 
specific points on the agenda of the competent Council meetings of ministers and discussed in the 
presence of the Commission;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/41  
( 1 ) COM(2012) 281, point 1, page 2.  
( 2 ) Introductory remarks made by Mr Caldeira on 6 November 2012 when presenting the Annual report of the European 
Court of Auditors concerning the financial year 2011 to the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control.
77. Calls, pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 287(4) TFEU, for the Court of Auditors to 
deliver an opinion on the independence of the national audit authorities in the context of shared 
management;  
Public procurement, eligibility criteria  
78. Notes that numerous errors derive from the incorrect application of national rules (in particular, as 
regards the ESF errors in 2011, breaches of national rules have contributed 86 % of the error rate), 
and that eligibility error (especially for grant beneficiaries) and breaches of public procurement rules 
(in particular for shared and indirectly managed funds) are the two main sources of errors;  
79. Welcomes, for this reason, the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 
on public procurement adopted by the Commission on 20 December 2011 (COM(2011) 896), as it 
aims at simplifying the rules and making them more flexible in order to increase the efficiency of 
public spending; notes nevertheless that the national rules on public procurement should also be 
simplified in accordance with Union legislation;  
80. Deplores the fact that errors can also derive from the addition to Union rules of national rules which 
are unnecessarily complex and therefore difficult to implement and verify by the Member States 
themselves, while creating an additional and artificial burden for the beneficiaries (‘gold plating’);  
81. Points out that such rules not only increase error rates unnecessarily, as all infringements will be 
considered an error in Union budget management even though it is the Member States that are 
responsible for these pointlessly complex rules, but could also lead to the Commission issuing 
recovery claims;  
82. Urges the Member States to identify and report to Parliament, in coordination with the Commission 
and in consultation with the Court of Auditors, those unnecessarily complex national rules in order to 
simplify them; notes that in this regard, the potential for elaboration of standard tender documen ­
tation on the public procurement procedures should be further explored;  
83. Calls on the Commission, where breaches of budgetary and competition law are known to have 
occurred in the Member States (particularly in the award of public contracts), to apply more stringent 
monitoring and conditions and, in case of doubt, to suspend financing from the Structural Funds 
immediately until compliance with the rules and hence a use of the funds which accords with Union 
law are guaranteed;  
84. Encourages the services of the Commission to launch a pilot action plan, as DG Employment did in 
policy sectors with a high error risk, aiming at identifying key areas where simplification could help to 
reduce the error rate at beneficiary level;  
85. Urges the Commission to develop additional instruments to facilitate the process of consultation with 
beneficiaries and to strengthen their direct feedback to the national authorities, in line with the efforts 
to simplify the national rules and to reduce the error rate;  
86. Once again requires the Commission to name the Member States responsible for the cumulative 
quantifiable errors identified; rejects the argument that the constraints imposed on the Court of 
Auditors by its statistical sample method, which effectively prevents the Court of Auditors from 
naming Member States with the highest error rate; calls on the Court of Auditors to compare its 
audit findings with those of the Commission in order to identify those Member States or regions most 
affected by the level and/or occurrence of errors;EN L 308/42 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
European Stability Mechanism  
87. Notes the entry into force of the European Stability Mechanism but regrets that this mechanism was 
set up outside the Union’s institutional framework, as this precludes any democratic, political and 
budgetary control by the Union institutions and in particular by Parliament; emphasises the fact that 
the creation outside the institutions of the Union represents a setback in the evolution of the Union, 
essentially at the expense of Parliament, the Court of Auditors and the Court of Justice of the 
European Union; deems it essential that the ESM will be discussed at least once a year in a 
plenary debate in the presence of the Council and the Commission on the basis on the annual 
report from the ESM Board of Auditors;  
Anti-fraud Strategy  
88. Calls on the Commission to report on and evaluate the anti-fraud strategies established within each 
directorate-general following the adoption of the Commission’s new Anti-Fraud Strategy (COM(2011) 
376) and the Internal Action Plan (SEC(2011) 787) for its implementation in June 2011;  
Tobacco Industry  
89. Calls on the Commission to report how it intends to improve as soon as possible its provision to 
introduce a pro-active management of potential conflict of interests and ‘revolving doors’;  
90. Calls on the Commission to report how it has implemented Article 5(3) of the WHO Framework 
Convention on Tobacco Control and how it intends to improve and clarify existing rules;  
91. Calls on the Commission to provide Parliament as soon as possible with an overview about all (public 
and non-public) documents and all persons involved in the negotiations of the four cooperation 
agreements with the tobacco industry;  
92. Notes that the Union is a under signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control 
(FCTC); deems the implementation of Article 5(3) as a legally binding obligation to the Union; calls on 
the Commission to report on how the provisions of Article 5(3) have been implemented in the Union 
and its institutions, especially considering the following question: how far does implementation follow 
guidelines set by the WHO to Article 5(3); questions how and why the Commission has deviated from 
those guidelines;  
Budgetary management  
Implementation rates, budgetary surplus, outstanding budgetary commitments  
93. Welcomes the high level of budget implementation, namely 99,3 % of commitment appropriations 
(the same as in 2010) and 98,6 % of payment appropriations (2010: 96,6 %) and the reduction of the 
overall surplus from EUR 4,5 billion in 2010 to EUR 1,5 billion in 2011;  
94. Is concerned by the acceleration in the rate of payment requests by the Member States towards the 
end of the year as regards the ESF, the ERDF and the Cohesion fund, because this prevents the 
Commission from requesting an amending budget from the budgetary authority in due time in 
order to increase the payment appropriations with a view to honouring the claims received; 
therefore asks the Commission to urge the Member States to transmit most of the claims as early 
as possible;  
95. Warns against the concentration of a significant proportion of payments in the month of December, 
which could affect the effectiveness of supervisory and control systems and increase the risk of error;  
96. Expresses concern about the significant increase in outstanding budgetary commitments from EUR 13 
billion in 2010 to EUR 207 billion, mostly in cohesion policy, for the programming period 2007- 
2013;  
97. Insists that sufficient payment appropriations need to be made available in future years from the 
outset;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/43
Revenue  
Traditional own resources and VAT  
98. Notes that the Court of Auditors, in its annual report, found that the revenue calculation was free 
from material error; is concerned, however, that as far as traditional own resources (TOR) are 
concerned, the Court of Auditors’ audit cannot cover undeclared imports or those that have 
escaped customs surveillance and that the annual report does not, therefore, provide an estimation 
of losses to the Union budget in that respect; suggests that the Court of Auditors issue a special report 
on undeclared imports based on a survey in at least 10 Member States and to adjust its working 
programme for 2013 accordingly;  
99. Is of the opinion that the Court of Auditors’ performance audit in the area of revenue is of particular 
value and encourages the Court of Auditors to concentrate more of its resources in this area; regrets 
that the annual report, around which much of the Court of Auditors’ work is centred, nevertheless 
provides little information as to the real situation as far as efficient collection of revenue is concerned; 
calls on the Court of Auditors to place greater emphasis in its annual report on the revenue audit, in 
order to present a comprehensive picture of the effectiveness of the revenue collection system in the 
Member States, and of the consequences of its inadequate functioning;  
100. Recalls that Parliament monitors the situation with regard to the collection of own resources in its 
own-initiative report on the protection of the Union’s financial interests, which is drafted annually on 
the basis of a Commission report;  
101. Is deeply concerned by the Court of Auditors’ conclusion that there are continuing weaknesses in 
national customs supervision and that it cannot, therefore, be ensured that the TOR recorded are 
complete and correct; finds it unacceptable that the control of customs procedures in Member States 
is not functioning properly; recalls that the correct operation of customs procedures has direct 
consequences in terms of the calculation of the value added tax; is deeply worried by the Court of 
Auditors’ finding in Special Report No 13/2011 that the application of customs procedure 42 (  1 ) 
alone accounted for extrapolated losses of approximately EUR 2 200 million (  2 ) in 2009 with regard 
to the seven Member States which were audited, representing 29 % of the VAT theoretically applicable 
on the taxable amount of all the imports made under customs procedure 42 in 2009 in those seven 
Member States;  
102. Stresses the Court of Auditors’ conclusion in Special Report No 13/2011 that ‘VAT evasion affects the 
financial interests of Member States; notes that it has an impact on the Union budget as it leads to 
lower VAT-based own resources. notes that this loss is compensated by the GNI-based own resource, 
distorting individual Member States’ contributions to the EU budget and that tax fraud undermines the 
functioning of the internal market and prevents fair competition’ (  3 ); 
103. Emphasises that the Court of Auditors’ findings in Special Report No 13/2011 were corroborated by 
the conclusions of the fact-finding mission of Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control to the 
ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, which took place on 19 and 20 September 2012; points out that 
the Union is a major trading block and that large European ports handle many ships; notes that as a 
result of logistical pressures, those ports rely on the procedures provided for in the customs regulation 
and that authorised economic operators gain in importance; notes, however, that Rotterdam, for 
example, the largest European port granted a high-level of simplified custom procedures to 
importers compared with other major ports in the Union; stresses that the simplification of 
customs procedures must include a proper and effective risk based policy approach leading to 
effective control systems avoiding the distortion of competition and that simplified procedures 
should be effectively monitored regularly by the Commission and Member States; notes that 
reduced controls could translate into major economic advantages for a port; stresses that any unjus ­
tified reduced control may seriously harm the Union’s financial interests and that of the Member 
States;EN L 308/44 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) Regime used by an importer in order to obtain a VAT exemption when the imported goods will be transported to 
another Member State and where the VAT is due in the Member State of destination.  
( 2 ) Of which EUR 1 800 million were incurred in the seven selected Member States and EUR 400 million in the 21 
Member States of destination of the imported goods in the sample.  
( 3 ) Special Report No 13/2011, p. 11, point 5.
104. Takes note of the initiatives taken by the Commission by way of follow-up to the Court of Auditors’ 
Special Report No 13/2011; regrets, however, that according to the First Eurofisc Activity Report for 
2011 issued in May 2012, the main findings and observations of that Special Report are still 
outstanding; requests information before September 2013 on progress made;  
105. Is seriously concerned, in particular, by the finding of the Working Field 3 that in most Member 
States, tax administrations have no direct access to customs data and that automated cross-checking 
with tax data is, therefore, not possible;  
106. Regrets that Recommendation No 6 of Special Report No 13/2011, calling for the amendment of the 
VAT Directive in order to identify separately the intra-community supplies following imports under 
the procedure in question in the trader’s VAT recapitulative statement, has not been implemented by 
the Commission; notes that this would allow an effective reconciliation between the customs and tax 
data in the Member State of importation; requests information as to the reasons why this was not 
done;  
107. Deplores the fact that the Council has not acted upon the Court of Auditors’ recommendation to 
amend the VAT Directive in order to hold the importer (or his tax representative) jointly and severally 
liable for the VAT loss in the Member State of destination in cases where a complete and timely VAT 
recapitulative statement is not submitted by him;  
108. Calls on the Commission to intensify its efforts to remedy the situation with regard to the state of 
implementation of the Court of Auditors’ recommendations contained in its Special Report 
No 13/2011;  
109. Deplores the fact that the Commission and the Member States have been unable to ensure timely 
implementation of the Modernised Customs Code (MCC), which was supposed to become applicable 
on 24 June 2013 at the latest; stresses that any further delays will impede adequate protection of the 
Member States’ financial interests and, consequently, those of the Union itself; emphasises the fact that 
according to the Commission, this situation is due, to a considerable extent, to the fact that the 
Member States cannot agree on the most appropriate IT development methodology and that they are 
facing limitations in human and financial resources; is concerned that the Commission and the 
Member States are lagging behind this very important reform in the situation where the collection 
of own resources is less than satisfactory;  
110. Calls on the Commission to make an evaluation of the cost of postponing full application of the MCC, 
quantifying the budgetary consequences of such postponement;  
111. Points to a study commissioned by Parliament on the ‘Implementation of the Modernised Customs 
Code’ (  1 ), from which it results that, in the best-case scenario, the entry into force of the MCC (which 
will be called the Union’s Customs Code if the recast proposal by the Commission is adopted) could 
take place in December 2017; reminds the Commission that the Union has exclusive competence in 
the area of the customs union and that it should, therefore, ensure compliance by the Member States; 
calls on the Commission, as a consequence, to step up its efforts to ensure that the MCC is imple ­
mented at the earliest possible date, and in any event to avoid the worst-case scenario indicated in the 
study for March 2033;  
112. Deplores the fact that two important initiatives aimed at combating VAT fraud, namely the proposal 
for a Council Directive amending Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of value added tax 
as regards a quick reaction mechanism against VAT fraud (COM(2012) 428) and the proposal for a 
Council Directive amending Directive 2006/112/EC as regards an optional and temporary application 
of the reverse charge mechanism in relation to supplies of certain goods and services susceptible to 
fraud (COM(2009) 511), are blocked in the Council;  
113. Welcomes the fact that EUROFISC, a common operational structure allowing Member States to react 
rapidly to cross-border VAT fraud, became fully operational; notes that a specific working field was 
created in February 2011 in order to exchange targeted information on fraudulent transactions using 
the customs procedure 42;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/45  
( 1 ) PE 475.094.
114. Calls on the Commission to strengthen its coordination with the Member States in order to collect 
reliable data on the customs and VAT gap in the respective countries and to report on a regular basis 
to Parliament in that regard;  
GNI-based revenue – the volume of tax evasion and avoidance and its impact on the Union budget and the 
economies of the Member States  
115. Welcomes the Commission’s Action Plan to strengthen the fight against tax fraud and tax evasion 
(COM(2012) 722); commends, in particular, the Commission’s proposal to set up a Quick Reaction 
Mechanism and insists that this would enable Member States to respond more swiftly and efficiently 
to VAT fraud; stresses that the potential cost of tax evasion and avoidance for Member States is 
estimated to amount to EUR 1 trillion every year while in comparison, the Union budget for 2011 in 
terms of appropriations for commitments amounted only to EUR 142,5 billion;  
Agriculture  
116. Deplores the increase of the error rate to 4,0 % in the policy area ‘Agriculture and rural development’ 
covering the expenditures of the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and the European 
Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and of the policy groups environment, fisheries 
and health;  
117. Recalls that the deterioration of the state of play in agriculture and, in particular, in rural development, 
is the main cause of the increase of the most likely error rate for all payments in the financial year 
2011;  
118. Notes that even though 0,2 % of this error rate has been generated by a change in the Court of 
Auditors’ methodology concerning the cross compliance infringements the error rate for the entire 
agriculture policy area increased between 2010 and 2011 in real terms by 1,5 %: from 2,3 % in 2010 
to 3,8 % in 2011 (  1 ); 
119. Takes note of the Court of Auditors’ approach which for the first time included cross compliance 
infringements in the calculation of the error rate as ‘cross- compliance obligations are substantive legal 
requirements that must be met by all recipients of direct aid and are the basic and in many cases the 
only conditions to be respected in order to justify the payments of full amount of direct payments’ (  2 ); 
asks the Court of Auditors in this context to further explain and justify its changes of methodology; 
calls on the Commission and the Court of Auditors to agree on a consistent methodology with a view 
to rendering the yearly budget implementation figures more comparable;  
120. Takes note that the Court of Auditors restricts its audit only to certain Statutory Management 
Requirements and to the Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition requirements and that 
‘the error rate must be used with great care and not be treated as an overall assessment of the 
respect of the cross compliance obligations by farmers’ (  3 ); 
121. Notes that it is up to the Member States to define ‘good agricultural and ecological condition’ and to 
which acreage it will be applied; criticises strongly the fact that beneficiaries who very often are not 
farmers will receive direct payments; considers this to be an incorrect allocation of funds which could 
be saved;  
122. Takes note that Member States recovered EUR 172,7 million from the beneficiaries during the 2011 
financial year and that the overall outstanding amount still to be recovered from the beneficiaries at 
year-end was EUR 1 206,9 million, of which EUR 458 million has been charged to the Member States 
for EAGF expenditure in line with the 50/50 rule; acknowledges that around EUR 25,7 million will be 
borne by the Union budget for cases reported irrecoverable during financial year 2011; points out that 
DG AGRI cleared all pending non-recovered cases dating from 2006 or 2002 by Decision 
2011/272/EU (  4 ) of 29 April 2011 and that following the application of the 50/50 rule, EUR 27,8 
million was charged to the Member States while EUR 29,2 million was borne by the Union budget for 
reasons of irrecoverability;EN L 308/46 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) Data communicated by Mr Kubyk on behalf of the Court of Auditors on 6 December 2012 during the hearing with 
Dacian Ciolo ș in the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control.  
( 2 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 3.9, footnote 11.  
( 3 ) Data communicated by Mr Kubyk on behalf of the Court of Auditors on 6 December 2012 during the hearing with 
Dacian Ciolo ș in the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control.  
( 4 ) Commission Implementing Decision 2011/272/EU of 29 April 2011 on the clearance of the accounts of the paying 
agencies of Member States concerning expenditure financed by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) for 
the 2010 financial year (OJ L 119, 7.5.2011, p. 70).
123. Welcomes the fact that for the first time, the Court of Auditors provides two specific assessments: on 
the market and direct support on the one hand, and on rural development on the other hand and 
considers that it provides a better insight into each policy area; calls on the Court of Auditors, 
however, to present the error rate for rural development separately from environment, fisheries and 
health and not on an aggregate basis;  
124. Welcomes the register providing information on beneficiaries of the Common Agricultural Policy 
payments in the Member States; considers this tool to be an important step towards more trans ­
parency in the agricultural sector; recalls, nevertheless, that in accordance with the ruling of the 
European Court of Justice of 9 November 2010 invalidating the legislation as regards natural 
persons (  1 ), Commission Regulation (EC) No 259/2008 (  2 ) has been modified limiting the obligation 
to publish information on the beneficiaries of CAP payments to legal persons; notes the Commission’s 
proposal for new transparency rules, adopted on 25 September 2012, to make it obligatory for 
Member States to disclose data of all beneficiaries including natural persons, except for beneficiaries 
whose annual aid does not exceed a certain  de minimis  threshold, taking into consideration the 
objections made in the judgment of the Court of Justice, in particular on data protection concerns;  
125. Takes note of the current practice in the management of Sapard funds, namely that funds are only 
exceptionally recovered in full if the fraudulent behaviour for a part of the project has artificially 
created the conditions without which the beneficiary would not have obtained support for the project 
at all; expresses concern about the current practice, recommended by the Commission to the Sapard 
agency, that a project of which a part has been affected by fraudulent behaviour can be deemed 
eligible for funding if the project is not deemed to be of an artificial nature, i.e. the percentage of the 
costs of all the affected elements does not exceed 50 % of the total costs of the entire project; is 
especially concerned about the lack of deterrence from fraudulent behaviour this practice exhibits;  
Market and direct support  
126. Regrets that the EAGF payments are not free from material error in 2011, the most likely error rate 
being estimated by the Court of Auditors at 2,9 %, and that the control systems audited by the Court 
of Auditors in Austria, Finland, Hungary, Italy and Spain were found to be only partially effective in 
assuring the legality and regularity of payments;  
127. Notes that the most frequent accuracy error relates to area over-declarations, most of which amount 
individually to less than 5 % and deplores that the larger error rates relate to cases where eligibility of 
permanent pasture was incorrectly assessed and recorded by Member States’ authorities in the Land 
and Parcel Identification System (LPIS);  
128. Endorses the recommendation of the Court of Auditors that the correct assessment of eligibility of 
permanent pasture should be ensured (  3 ); 
129. Notes with disappointment that the Court of Auditors found that the effectiveness of the Integrated 
Administration and Control System (IACS) is adversely affected by inaccurate data in the various 
databases and also by an incorrect administrative treatment of claims by the paying agencies in certain 
Member States; reminds the Commission that the introduction of IACS led to a decrease in errors and 
calls on the Commission to remedy the situation without any delays using suspensions and inter ­
ruptions of funding when necessary;  
130. Is concerned that the Commission, in its annual activity report, maintained its reservations concerning 
the IACS systems in Bulgaria and Portugal due to serious deficiencies; emphasises the fact that, given 
the importance of IACS for the management and control of agricultural expenditure, serious defi ­
ciencies in its set-up and operation exposes the Commission to reputational risk, even if the financial 
impact does not exceed the materiality threshold;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/47  
( 1 ) Joined cases C-92/09 and C-93/09, ECR 2010, p. I-11063.  
( 2 ) Commission Regulation (EC) No 259/2008 of 18 March 2008 laying down detailed rules for the application of 
Council Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 as regards the publication of information on the beneficiaries of fund deriving 
from the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development 
(EAFRD) (OJ L 76, 19.3.2008, p. 28).  
( 3 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 3.45.
131. Regrets that some systematic failures in the management and controls systems observed and reported 
already in previous years have not been remedied: incorrect classification of land use, overstatement of 
eligible land in LPIS or incorrect application of the obvious error concept;  
132. Deplores the fact that deficiencies were found by the Court of Auditors in on-the-spot measurements; 
insists that on-the-spot inspections should be of the quality necessary to identify the eligible area in a 
reliable manner (  1 ). 
133. Regrets that the quality of the work performed by the certifying bodies audited by the Court of 
Auditors under the new voluntary procedure for the reinforcement of assurance is insufficient;  
134. Calls on the Commission to take all necessary actions so that paying agencies remedy weaknesses 
detected in their administration and control system; insists that the design and quality of the work to 
be performed by certifying bodies must be improved in order to provide reliable assessment of legality 
and regularity of operations in the paying agencies; asks the Commission to investigate if it is possible 
to cooperate with private individuals to verify cross compliance standards and reduce administrative 
burden;  
Rural development  
135. Regrets that payments in the policy sector ‘rural development, environment, fisheries and health’ are 
not free from material error in 2011, the most likely error being estimated by the Court of Auditors 
at 7,7 %, and that the examined supervisory and control systems were partially effective;  
136. Notes that the major part of the most likely error rate concern the eligibility of non-area-related 
measures such as modernisation of agricultural holdings and the setting up of basic services for the 
economy and rural population, partly due to the often complex rules and eligibility conditions;  
137. Expresses concern about the fact that many errors were detected when beneficiaries were public 
bodies, such as municipalities or the paying agency itself (  2 ) and that those errors concerned issues 
such as declaring ineligible VAT or not complying with public procurement; calls, therefore, on the 
Commission and the Member States to ensure that the existing rules are better enforced;  
138. Reiterates its regrets that the Commission follows different methodologies to quantify public 
procurement errors in the two policy areas agriculture and cohesion both of which being furthermore 
not in line with the Court of Auditors’ methodology and calls on the Commission and the Court of 
Auditors to harmonise the treatment of public procurement errors in these two policy areas 
urgently (  3 ); 
139. Notes that the Court of Auditors identifies significant problems concerning the implementation of 
cross-compliance requirements for the identification and registration of animals (  4 ); calls on the 
Member States to improve the quality of checks throughout the year without imposing an additional 
administrative load on the beneficiaries;  
140. Regrets that weaknesses were identified by the Court of Auditors in the supervisory and control 
systems of the Member States for rural development and that the three elements audited were 
affected by deficiencies: i.e. the administrative and controls systems to ensure correct payment, the 
control systems based on physical on-the-spot checks and systems to ensure implementation and 
control of cross compliance;  
141. Calls on the Commission to take account of findings identified by the Court of Auditors when 
establishing the audit strategy of DG AGRI’s clearance of accounts;EN L 308/48 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 3.23.  
( 2 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 4.12.  
( 3 ) See paragraph 86 of the abovementioned Parliament’s Resolution of 10 May 2012.  
( 4 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, point 4.18.
142. Is particularly worried about DG AGRI management representation as the Annual Activity report does 
not provide for an explanation of why the residual error rate for rural development had ‘increased 
significantly compared to the previous year’ (  1 ); 
143. Notes that according to the Court of Auditors the DG AGRI residual error rate is much lower than the 
Court of Auditors’ finding because it is ‘based on figures reported by the Member States for 2010, and 
as identified in the Courts audit, Member States do no detect or report all ineligible expenditure due to 
weaknesses in their checks of paying agencies’ (  2 ); 
144. Is particularly concerned by the fact that DG AGRI considers that ‘in general Member States are 
improving their management and control systems for rural expenditure’ (  3 ) while the audit of the 
Court of Auditors shows that the supervisory and control systems in Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Italy 
and Spain were not effective or only partially effective (  4 ); is of the opinion that such a big divergence 
between the assessments of the Commission and the Court of Auditors makes it difficult for the 
discharge authority to reach objective conclusions; insists on data exchange between the Court of 
Auditors and the Commission to facilitate coordinated back casting for past periods in order to ensure 
a reliable database for future comparisons; is convinced of the usefulness of tripartite meetings 
between the Court of Auditors, the Commission and representatives from Member States 
concerned when looking for common analysis;  
145. Calls, therefore, on the Commission to take the necessary measures in order to reduce the error rate in 
rural development and welcomes the fact that DG AGRI has set up a working group to assess the root 
causes of rural development errors and develop corrective actions for the current and future 
programming periods;  
146. Calls on the Commission, nevertheless, to set up an action plan to reduce the error rate not only by 
providing guidance and assistance to the Member States by means of best practice examples but also 
by increasing monitoring on the implementation of programmes and using sanctions such as inter ­
ruptions and suspensions of payments in particular in rural development more effectively where 
needed;  
147. Calls on the Commission to further improve the quality control of accreditation criteria for paying 
agencies and certifying bodies;  
148. Fully supports the Court of Auditors’ recommendations that the rules and conditions for rural 
development should be further simplified and that Member States should ensure that existing rules 
are better enforced;  
Environment, public health and food safety  
149. Is concerned, in this context, about the presentation of environment and health policy areas together 
with rural development and fisheries in the annual report of the Court of Auditors on the imple ­
mentation of the Union budget, as it is stated that the payments by year-end were affected by material 
errors; takes careful note that this conclusion concerns solely the area of rural development; requests 
that the Court of Auditors explore a different presentation in the future, which takes into account the 
good performance of the policy areas in the remit of the Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, 
Public Health and Food Safety;  
150. Considers the overall implementation rates of the budgetary headings for environment, climate action, 
public health and food safety as satisfactory; emphasises the fact that 2011 is the first budget year 
under the complete budget procedure laid down in TFEU; recalls, again, that only 0,76 % of the Union 
budget is dedicated to those policy instruments falling under the responsibility of the Committee on 
the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, bearing in mind the clear Union added value in these 
fields and the support from Union citizens for the environmental and climate policies of the Union;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/49  
( 1 ) DG AGRI annual activity report, point 3.1.1.1.6, p. 58.  
( 2 ) Intervention of Ms Budbergyte on behalf of the Court of Auditors on 6 December 2012 during the hearing of 
Commissioner Dacian Ciolo ș in the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control.  
( 3 ) DG AGRI, annual activity report, p. 79.  
( 4 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual report 2011, Annex 4.2.
151. Emphasises the fact that the overall rate of execution amounted to 99,92 % in the field of 
environment and climate action; notes, furthermore, that the implementation of payments was at a 
level of 88,05 %; takes note that for the first year, the implementation of budget lines for environment 
and climate action has been done by the Directorate-General ENV and the newly created Directorate- 
General CLIMA, becoming budgetary self-responsible in 2011;  
152. Is satisfied with the achievement of 99,82 % of the implementation of the LIFE+ operational budget 
showing the necessity and acceptance as single instrument promoting solely environmental protection; 
notes that in 2011, EUR 267 179 828 was dedicated to projects in Member States, EUR 8 997 284 
supported the operational activities of NGOs, EUR 46 817 919 was used for measures intended to 
support the Commission’s role of initiating and monitoring policy and legislation development and 
EUR 17 589 277 was used for administrative support; intends further monitor the allocation of the 
LIFE+ funds among the three strands of its effective use;  
153. Is aware that the payment rate of LIFE+ actions under the responsibility of DG CLIMA in the first year 
reached only 58,23 %; takes note that this low consumption is due to the fact that the preparation of 
the 2011 budget was too optimistic and the requested amounts were too high; notes, furthermore, 
that final payment settlements were only requested in 2012; emphasises the fact that unused payment 
appropriations have been transferred to other budget lines in the context of the global transfer 
exercise taking place each year in November; is aware that in 2011, those payment appropriations 
have been used for the shortfalls for Cohesion budget lines;  
154. Considers the progress in the implementation of five Pilot Projects (PPs) and two Preparatory Actions 
(PAs), amounting all together to EUR 11 765 508, as satisfactory; is aware that the execution of those 
actions can be burdensome for the Commission, due to the small amounts available in relation to the 
necessary procedures for execution (e.g. action plan, call for proposals); encourages the Commission to 
focus in the future on PPs and PAs with true added value for the Union;  
155. Takes note of the implementation level of 95,1 % for budget chapter 17 04 — Food and feed safety, 
animal health, animal welfare and plant health; is aware that full implementation was not necessary 
due to lower costs for bluetongue vaccination compared to the forecasts by Member States, due to the 
shift of some Member States to voluntary, farmer financed programmes and due to a decrease in BSE 
cases; observes the increase in payment execution to 98,1 % compared to 90,5 % in 2010; encourages 
the Commission to strengthen the cooperation with Member States in order to receive the best and 
most accurate data for the forecasts in this policy area;  
Fisheries  
156. Takes note of the communication from the Commission to Parliament, the Council and the Court of 
Auditors on the annual accounts of the European Union for the financial year 2011; takes note of the 
Annual Report of the Court of Auditors concerning the financial year 2011; believes that the area of 
maritime affairs and fisheries does not figure prominently in those documents;  
157. Expresses its satisfaction that the implementation for Title 11 of the budget was globally satisfactory 
with an implementation rate of 97 % for commitment appropriations and 95 % for payment appro ­
priations; notes, furthermore, that the Court of Auditors had no major observations on DG MARE’s 
Annual Activity Report;  
158. Calls on the Court of Auditors to present the error rate for fisheries separately from environment, 
rural development and health, and not on an aggregate basis;  
159. Recalls that in 2010, there was insufficient monitoring of catches under fisheries partnership 
agreements which resulted in additional payments to cover catches in excess of the negotiated 
quota; welcomes, therefore, the action taken by DG MARE to improve the monitoring of catches 
under fisheries partnership agreements, which will hopefully prevent a recurrence of this issue high ­
lighted by the Court of Auditors; notes that the overfished amounts in 2010 were deducted from the 
2011 quota;EN L 308/50 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
160. Urges the Court of Auditors once again to include an audit on the external dimension of the common 
fisheries policy in its work programme;  
161. Notes the reservations made in DG MARE’s Annual Activity Report in respect of the European 
Fisheries Fund (EFF) following the Court of Auditors’ special report 12/2011 regarding investments 
on board funded under Article 25(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006 (  1 ) which increased the ability 
of vessels to catch fish; understands that DG MARE has been working with Member States to address 
the identified problems by reviewing the projects funded under this provision of the EFF with the aim 
of eliminating ineligible expenditure;  
162. Questions the technical assessment methods that led to certain expenditure under Article 25(2) of 
Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006 being declared ineligible on the grounds that it would increase 
capacity when the expenditure concerned were, in fact, designed to modernise fishing activity; calls 
on the Commission to propose a fresh definition of capacity, in particular in order to avoid this kind 
of re-interpretation in the future;  
163. Expresses its deep concern that public aid has been used to increase the vessels’ ability to catch fish 
and thus increased overcapacity in the Union fisheries sector;  
164. Notes the second reservation in DG MARE’s Annual Activity Report regarding the management and 
control of the implementation of the EFF in the Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, 
Romania, Slovakia, Spain and in Sweden;  
165. Considers that in the future, the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors should have a separate 
breakdown for the figures relating to DG MARE in order to increase transparency and that the 
number of tests should be increased in order to ensure higher general accuracy from the sample;  
166. Urges the Member States to take all necessary action to address the identified problems and thereby, 
make it possible to lift the existing reservations;  
Regional policy; energy and transport  
Error rate compared to effectiveness  
167. Deplores the fact that the Court of Auditors estimated the most likely error rate in this spending area 
at 6 %, which is unacceptably high; notes that this error rate remains below those reported by the 
Court of Auditors for the period 2006-2008 due to reinforced control provisions and a strict policy 
of interruptions and suspensions when deficiencies were detected, in line with the Commission’s 2008 
Action Plan;  
168. Is concerned about the fact that for 62 % of the regional policy transactions affected by error, 
sufficient information was available to Member States’ authorities to have detected and corrected at 
least some of the errors prior to certifying the expenditure to the Commission; calls, therefore, on the 
Commission to urge the Member States to improve their management and control systems in order to 
detect and correct errors at national level; considers this to be a command imposed by the principle of 
sound financial management (‘better spending’); emphasises that deficient national management and 
control systems must have net corrections as a consequence;  
169. Notes that the Court of Auditors assessed the work of seven national and regional audit authorities, 
each from different Member States, and concluded that the audit authorities in Greece, Hungary, Latvia 
and Portugal were effective, that the audit authorities in Italy-Sicily and Romania were partially 
effective and that the audit authority in the Czech Republic was ineffective;  
170. Calls on the Commission to use all available instruments over the next programming period 2014- 
2020, as outlined in the Commission proposal (COM(2011) 615/2), in particular by means of 
delegated acts and implementing acts, with a view to setting out conditions which the national 
audit authorities shall fulfil and to adopting models for the audit strategy, the audit opinion and 
the annual control report, as well as the methodology for the sampling method;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/51  
( 1 ) Council Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006 of 27 July 2006 on the European Fisheries Fund (OJ L 223, 15.8.2006, p. 1).
171. Regrets the fact that according to the 2011 Annual Activity Report of DG REGIO, the countries with 
the highest risk of incorrect payments for the 2007-2013 programming period are the Czech 
Republic (11,4 %), Romania (11,2 %) and Italy (8,6 %);  
172. Takes note that in 2011, the DG REGIO found serious deficiencies in five Member States: France, 
Austria, Italy, Romania and the Czech Republic; notes that whereas the difficulties in France and 
Austria have been identified by the national audit authorities themselves, the deficiencies in Italy, 
Romania and the Czech Republic were primarily linked to the architecture of the management and 
control systems;  
173. Welcomes the initiative taken by its responsible committee to invite the responsible ministers from 
the Member States with the weakest control system to Parliament with the view to explaining which 
measures the respective country has taken to remedy the situation; in this context, expresses its 
appreciation for the contribution made by the Czech Deputy Finance Minister in discussions with 
the responsible committee; considers his presence in the committee to be a first step towards the 
Member States assuming a more responsible role in managing Union funds; welcomes in this context 
first contacts with the Romanian authorities and the Italian Parliament;  
174. Takes note of the number of reservations (121 programmes) made by the Commission’s directorates- 
general and amounts at risk representing, according to the Commissioner, EUR 1 600 million; 
welcomes, at the same time, the fact that the increase is mainly due to a stricter approach 
followed by the Commission, including a general rule that an accumulated residual risk of 2 % 
would lead to a reservation for the programme concerned;  
175. Notes the high number of the Commission’s reservations concerning the ERDF/CF management and 
control systems for identified operational programmes for the period 2007-2013 in the following 
Member States: Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, 
Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain and United 
Kingdom due to significant issues regarding the effective functioning of management and control 
systems;  
176. Notes the Commission’s reservations for the 2000-2006 period concerning the CF management and 
control systems in Hungary and Spain, and concerning the ERDF linked to outstanding issues at 
closure stage in Spain, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Cross-Border programmes, all due to reputational 
reasons;  
177. Notes with concern that SMEs are underrepresented in receiving funds compared to large companies; 
invites the Commission and Member States to ensure that the eligibility rules, accounting obligations 
and their practical implementation do not prohibitively rule out the participation of SMEs;  
178. Is of the opinion that a swift implementation of workable FOI (Freedom of Information) laws across 
the Union is imperative, as is the systematic, proactive and centralised disclosure of data and docu ­
ments, especially in relation to regional policy;  
Sources of errors  
179. Emphasises the fact that public procurement procedures and eligibility rules are particularly prone to 
error;  
180. Acknowledges the importance of managing authorities being adequately staffed; calls on Member 
States to pay attention to this requirement; in order to comply with their obligations pursuant to 
Article 53b(2) of the Financial Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 to take all necessary measures 
to protect the Union’s financial interests when implementing the budget;  
181. Points to the fact that the quantification of errors could give rise to a difference of treatment: notes 
that whereas the Court of Auditors looks at compliance, according to which rules were either adhered 
to or not, the Commission takes into consideration the financial impact of an error and financial 
corrections may vary accordingly;EN L 308/52 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
182. Emphasises the fact that a complex body of rules is often at the origin of errors; shares, therefore, the 
Commission’s approach to strive for simplification; warns against the risk which could stem from 
additional national regulations increasing the administrative burden (i.e. ‘gold plating’, complicated 
eligibility rules);  
Reporting and financial corrections  
183. Welcomes the Commission’s correction mechanisms which appropriately address errors and defi ­
ciencies detected over a multiannual period and at closure; notes that one third of ERDF programmes 
had payments blocked in the course of 2012 and following 121 reservations pronounced in 2011, 
DG REGIO has interrupted payment deadlines for 63 programmes, issued 115 warning letters and 
initiated suspension procedures for 60 of those programmes;  
184. Recalls that the financial corrections should not merely serve as a fine and that their application 
should have a positive impact on the long-term improvements of the management and control 
systems as well as on the recurrence of errors;  
185. Is concerned about the findings of the Court of Auditors that there is no assurance that financial 
correction mechanisms compensate for all operational programmes in an adequate manner and that 
all material issues are resolved; moreover the Court of Auditors found no evidence that financial 
correction mechanisms translate into lasting improvements to systems which would prevent 
recurrence of the errors uncovered; refers in this respect specifically to the Special Report No 
3/2012 (  1 ) (points 83 and 84); calls, therefore, on the Commission to provide a comprehensive 
assessment of the financial corrections made and their impact on the systems in respect of preventing 
the recurrence of the same errors (specifically of a systemic nature) in the future; calls on the 
Commission to inform Parliament about its conclusions by the end of 2013; invites the Commission 
to use all relevant findings during the next programming period 2014-2020 and to put forward 
proposals for amending regulations, as appropriate;  
186. Observes with satisfaction the continuous efforts of the Commission to reinforce and, at the same 
time, simplify the control provisions for cohesion policy; is of the opinion that the proposed measures 
for the 2014-2020 programming period such as specific  ex-ante  conditionalities, annual management 
declarations, certification of annual accounts, audit opinions or stricter rules for the substitution of 
ineligible expenditure should further contribute to the reduction of the level of error; supports the 
growing result orientation and the thematic concentration of cohesion policy that should assure high 
added value of the co-financed operations;  
187. Calls for payments from the Structural Funds to be subject to increased conditionality monitoring so 
as to ensure that the rules on the proper use of Structural Funds are complied with in all Member 
States;  
Recommendations  
188. Calls on the Commission to assist Member States in drafting comprehensive, meaningful and 
comparable audit control reports, including a chapter on the contributions Union funds have made 
in the respective countries to attain the Europe 2020 objectives, both at national and regional level, 
considering each region’s individual potential for development and its possible transformation in an 
economic growth centre;  
189. In this context, draws the attention of the Commission and the Member States to the fact that under 
the Europe 2020 objectives operational programmes should increasingly be designed in such a way 
that its sub-objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely and, consequently, the 
programme lends itself to performance audits; notes that the establishment of a common system of 
result and impact indicators would contribute to the evaluation of the progress achieved under the 
different programmes in the context of their effectiveness and efficiency and not only in terms of their 
financial implementation;  
190. Reminds the Member States that due to the strict time limits for project execution, a mature project 
pipeline is required, especially for major infrastructure projects, in order to start their implementation 
at the beginning of the next programming period 2014-2020;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/53  
( 1 ) Special Report No 3/2012 of the court of Auditors – Structural Funds: Did the Commission successfully deal with 
deficiencies identified in the Member States’ management and control systems?
191. Shares the Court of Auditors’ view that the Commission should further reinforce the present sanction 
system (interruption, suspension, financial corrections) by reducing the possibility of replacing 
ineligible expenditure with other expenditure during the next programming period thereby creating 
an additional incentive for Member States to detect and correct errors at an early stage;  
192. Calls on the Commission, in consultation with the Court of Auditors, to establish a transparent system 
which allows, on the one hand, taking into consideration annual financial corrections but also, on the 
other, financial corrections during the life span of a programming period;  
193. Calls on the Commission to assist Member States in rendering first-level controls and national audit 
authorities more effective by exchange of best practice and closer cooperation between the 
Commission, the Court of Auditors and national authorities (‘tripartite meetings’); considers, in 
addition, that the national audit authorities could put extra emphasis on the follow-up of the 
achieved results and effectiveness of Union funds absorption, rather than applying only a quantitative 
approach, regardless of the final project goals;  
194. Calls on the Commission to start the preparation of a ‘best practices’ manual from the current 
programming period, incorporating practical results, achieved effect and lessons learnt in order to 
optimise the absorption process and to decrease the level of error rates; notes that in this regard, the 
potential future beneficiaries for the next programming period 2014-2020, including Croatia, as well 
as potential candidate countries, would profit;  
Transport and tourism  
195. Notes that in considering the implementation of the budget for the 2011 financial year, as in the 
previous year, the Court of Auditors focused mainly on cohesion and energy policies rather than on 
transport policy; stresses that transport policies are concerned with the development of the internal 
market, increased competition, innovation and the integration of transport networks;  
196. Notes that the EUR 51 million decrease in appropriations made in 2011 to the cooperation in 
Transport to the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking was due to the review of industrial policy approach 
and the decrease in payment appropriations of EUR 60 million for projects of common interests in 
the trans-European transport networks was made for timing reasons and to allow full use of the 
carryover from 2010; acknowledges that the reduction in cash-flow for Sesar Joint Undertaking was in 
line with the recommendation of the Court of Auditors;  
197. Is disappointed that following the low uptake of payment appropriations for transport safety in 2010 
and the request to receive an explanation of this underspending from the Commission, no detailed 
information about the level of appropriations and their uptake in 2011 was provided;  
198. Notes that the characteristics of transport-related projects often leads to the concentration of a 
significant proportion of payments in a limited period, especially towards the end of the year and 
is concerned by the negative impact this can possibly have on the auditing exercise;  
Employment and social affairs  
Error rate compared to effectiveness  
199. Notes that the Court of Auditors estimated that the most likely error rate in this spending area was 
2,2 % and that the Court of Auditors’ audit indicate weaknesses in particular in the ‘first level checks’ 
of the expenditures, which are the responsibility of the managing authorities and intermediate bodies 
in the Member States;  
200. Notes that in 2011, the Director-General issued reservations in his annual activity report with regard 
to operational programmes in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, 
Romania, Slovakia and the United Kingdom;  
201. Notes with satisfaction that the most likely error rate is close to the materiality threshold demon ­
strating that a consistent application of interruption, suspension and financial corrections has had a 
positive effect on the overall error rate;EN L 308/54 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
202. Is concerned about the fact that for 76 % of the regional policy transactions affected by error sufficient 
information was available to the Member States’ authorities to have detected and corrected at least 
some of the errors prior to certifying the expenditure to the Commission;  
203. Emphasises that it is the task of the national audit authorities to develop the necessary ‘internal self- 
control’ of rules and measures in order to detect and correct errors committed at the ‘first level’;  
204. Takes note of the number of reservations (24 programmes) made by the Commission’s DG 
‘Employment’ (EMPL) in 2011 corresponding to EUR 57,7 million; notes, furthermore, that 
payments for 21 programmes were temporarily interrupted, valued at EUR 911 million; welcomes 
the strict approach followed by the Commission, including a general rule that an accumulated residual 
risk of 2 % would lead to a reservation for the programme concerned;  
205. Welcomes the fact that for the first time in 2011, the area of Employment and Social Affairs has been 
sampled and appraised separately from the Cohesion Policy chapter; welcomes the decreased error rate 
for this policy field, which stands at 2,2 %, compared to 3,9 % average for all policy fields; notes, 
however, that ineligible costs were reimbursed;  
206. Recalls the need to monitor and measure the performance of financial instruments against policy 
goals — Europe 2020 objectives — in order to be able to identify shortcomings and to make 
progress; calls for performance information and data be available on annual basis; is of the 
opinion that in context of the current economic and financial crisis the need for multi-criteria 
performance data on ESF interventions is crucial;  
207. Regrets that despite reinforcements of ESF budget lines by means of transfers between budget lines 
and via the Amending Budget, EUR 2,7 billion of outstanding payments to the beneficiaries could not 
be paid due to insufficient payments appropriations; calls on the Commission to propose, and on the 
Council to agree on, accurate payment appropriations in annual budgetary procedure in order to avoid 
uncertainty and unnecessary procedural burden on the budgetary authority and provide beneficiaries 
with timely payments;  
208. Welcomes the fact that for the ESF, an amount of EUR 3,25 million was added to the Operational 
Technical Assistance line in order to mobilise specific expertise and directly support the implemen ­
tation of a Greek ESF Operational Programme;  
209. Stresses that the effectiveness and quality of work of ESF audit institutions needs to be improved;  
210. Notes that the share of spending on employment strand within the Progress programme is slightly 
lower than the share it has in the programme; following the conclusions of the evaluation report (  1 ) 
considers that spending on policy advice, research and analysis and policy debate on employment 
should be increased;  
211. Reiterates its call to ensure, in the light of implementation, an orderly progression of the total 
appropriations for payments in relation to the appropriations for commitments, so as to avoid any 
abnormal evolution of outstanding commitments (RAL) (65 % of the total volume of the Cohesion 
Funds at the end of 2011);  
Sources of errors  
212. Notes that the Court of Auditors detected the reimbursement of ineligible costs in 13 % of the 180 
transactions audited in the ESF and that such errors account for 77 % of all quantifiable errors and 
make up approximately 73 % of the estimated error rate for this policy group;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/55  
( 1 ) The Mid-term Evaluation of Progress — Final Report, Ecorys, 22 December 2011.
213. Is deeply worried that 86 % of the error rate calculated by the Court of Auditors at Union level for the 
ESF derives from the incorrect application of national rules, varying from clerical mistakes to 
unnecessarily complex rules (‘gold plating’) to insufficient first level controls;  
Reporting and financial corrections  
214. Is of the opinion that the Commission’s correction mechanisms addresses appropriately errors and 
deficiencies detected over a multi-annual period and at closure; notes that up to November 2012, the 
Commission adopted, in addition to measures taken in 2011, two suspension decisions and 34 
interruptions; the latter represent a value of EUR 153 million; notes, furthermore, that the 
Commission imposed EUR 153 million of financial corrections until November 2012;  
Progress on the closure of the 2000-2006 programming period  
215. Recognises that Member States have to submit three closure documents: a certified statement of final 
expenditure, including final payment application, a final report on implementation, and a declaration 
on winding-up of the assistance; for the programming period 239 operational programmes are 
concerned;  
216. Takes note that 149 programmes (62 %) have been closed by the end of October 2012; notes that 
commitment appropriations amounting to EUR 1 889 million were still open;  
Fraud Prevention  
217. Welcomes the development by DG EMPL and REGIO of smart IT tools for the prevention, detection 
and investigation of fraud such as ARACHNE Risk Scoring Tool; points out that a pilot exercise was 
carried out in Belgium, Portugal and Hungary which led to the further development of the initial risk 
scoring tool with modules capable of enriching the data with external publicly available information; 
understands that the ARACHNE tool will be ready in Spring 2013 while by the end of 2013, all 
Member States will be able to use the tool on a voluntary basis;  
Recommendations  
218. Calls on the Commission to assist Member States in drafting comprehensive, meaningful and 
comparable audit control reports, including a chapter on the contribution Union funds made in 
the respective Member State to attain the Europe 2020 objectives;  
219. Draws the attention, in this context, of the Commission and the Member States to the fact that under 
the Europe 2020 objectives operational programmes should increasingly be designed in such a way 
that their sub-objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely and, consequently, the 
programme lends itself to performance audits;  
220. Shares the Court of Auditors’ view that the Commission should further reinforce the present sanction 
system (interruption, suspension, financial corrections) by reducing the possibility of replacing 
ineligible expenditure with other expenditure during the next programming period thereby creating 
an additional incentive for Member States to detect and correct errors at an early stage;  
221. Calls on the Commission and the Court of Auditors to establish a transparent system which allows, 
on the one hand, to take into consideration annual financial corrections but also, on the other, 
financial corrections during the life span of a programming period;  
222. Calls on the Commission to assist Member States in rendering first-level controls and national audit 
authorities more effective by exchange of best practice and closer cooperation between the 
Commission, the Court and national authorities (‘tripartite meetings’); welcomes tripartite meetings 
as an important part in the contradictory process aiming at enhanced cooperation among the parties 
resulting in a more effective detection and correction of errors, in particular with regard to the ESF;EN L 308/56 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
223. Agrees with the Commission that particular emphasis should be given to:  
— improving the declaration of costs and their verification at national/regional level,  
— supporting the management and control authorities in identifying the main sources of errors in 
the most critical operational programmes,  
— using increasingly the ‘Simplified Cost Options’ providing for reimbursements based on standard 
scales of unit costs, indirect costs according to a predefined flat rate percentage of direct project 
costs, as well as lump sum payments;  
Bulgaria and Romania  
224. Notes with concern the interim Commission’s report on the progress made by Romania under the 
Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, especially in the light of Romania’s capability to protect the 
financial interest of the Union; is concerned by the reports assessment that only limited progress has 
been achieved in the prevention and sanctioning of corruption related to public procurement; stresses 
the importance of the report’s suggestion that the Government materialises the appointment of a new 
leadership for the prosecution and the National Anti-corruption Agency (DNA); calls on the 
Commission to steadfastly and determinedly insist, as far as the Romanian Government is concerned, 
that the Commission’s recommendations are complied with and clarified; expects, finally, a series of 
measures from the Commission, in cooperation with the Romanian government, aimed at improving 
the integrity of the Romanian legal system;  
225. Notes with concern the Commission’s Report on the progress made by Bulgaria under the 
Cooperation and Verification Mechanism with a view to further efforts needed in order to demonstrate 
tangible results in the monitored sectors; calls upon the effective implementation of the established 
legislative and institutional framework; notes with concern the Report’s statement that the Supreme 
Judicial Council (SJC) has not used the new powers given to it accordingly, aimed at effectively 
managing and leading the judiciary through a comprehensive reform process; welcomes the efforts 
by the Bulgarian government to renew the SJC with a mandate able of implementing fundamental 
reform through the following new rules: public hearings of the candidates for SJC, clear criteria for 
their professional and educational qualification and vision for the efficiency, accountability and 
integrity of the judiciary; acknowledges the fact that the new specialised structures put in place 
illustrate a commitment to adapting the current structures to tackle organised crime more effectively; 
takes note, however, that the Report suggests that these new instruments have not yet delivered the 
expected results regarding important cases; notes with great concern that investigations into alleged 
corruption and abuse of office by magistrates have received a particular weak response from the 
judiciary; is fearful, furthermore, that a weak implementation of Public Procurement legislation could 
result in an important source of corruption, serious violations of Union procurement rules as well as a 
poor delivery of public goods with a European added value and waste of Union public money; 
welcomes the amended public procurement law, establishing the  ex-ante  control on tender procedures 
to guarantee the proper spending of the public resources; calls on the Commission steadfastly and 
determinedly to insist, as far as the Bulgarian institutions are concerned, that the Commission’s 
recommendations are complied with; expects, finally, a series of measures from the Commission, in 
cooperation with the Bulgarian judiciary, to improve the integrity of the Bulgarian legal system;  
Control of Structural Funds in the Czech Republic  
226. Takes note that an Action plan has been implemented by the Czech government in 2012; notes with 
concern the centralisation of the audit activities under the main audit authority in the Czech Ministry 
of Finance since the Court of Auditors reported that this audit authority was ineffective; calls on the 
Commission to report to the discharge authority on adjustments concerning the staff of the audit 
authority, based on the Czech Government’s analysis, as requested in the Action Plan;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/57
227. Takes note that the Commission has not applied any corrections due to the ineffectiveness of the audit 
system in the Czech Republic; notes, however, that the Commission applied corrections for some of 
the operational programmes, mainly due to shortcomings in the functioning of the management and 
control systems (errors in public procurement and the selection of operations); notes that the 
corrections applied can be allocated to other projects; is worried about information reported 
initially by the Court of Auditors which suggested that the Czech Ministry of Finance used its role 
as an audit authority and certification authority to influence the final error rate; requests that the 
Commission report back to Parliament in detail on the matter; calls on the Commission to elaborate 
in cooperation with the Czech Government and to follow up on the implementation of an existing 
Action plan that tackles the shortcomings in the Audit system at the core;  
Gender issues  
228. Stresses that under Article 8 TFEU, the promotion of equality between men and women is a funda ­
mental principle of the Union; reiterates its demand for the implementation of gender budgeting by all 
stakeholders in the Union budgetary procedure; calls, therefore, on the Court of Auditors to assess the 
implementation of the Union budget from the gender perspective, where applicable;  
229. Regrets that the annual report contains no observations from the Court of Auditors or any replies 
from the Commission regarding spending related to the promotion of equality between women and 
men;  
230. Notes the Court of Auditors’ numerous observations, as well as the Commission’s replies on the 
chapter of employment and social affairs, the policy area primarily covering gender equality; asks the 
Court of Auditors to provide specific details if any of the observations concerning spending related to 
gender equality;  
231. Reiterates its call for further efforts to develop gender-specific data, which allow proper monitoring of 
how budgetary allocations affect the economic and social opportunities of women and men, that can 
be included in the reports on the implementation of the budget; underlines that the new Multiannual 
Financial Framework provides an opportunity to develop and introduce such data, and implement 
gender budgeting as a tool for good governance;  
External relations, aid and enlargement  
232. Stresses that the Union’s resources must be managed in line with the principles of transparency and 
good governance; notes the Court of Auditors’ finding that payments for the 2011 financial year are 
free from material error under heading 4 of the budget but that interim and final payments are 
affected by material error; further notes that not all errors were quantifiable;  
233. Points out the specific nature of the financing of the Union’s external assistance, which, although it 
must be subject to the same rules and oversight requirements as the rest of the Union budget, is put 
in place partly by persons and entities external to the Union under sometimes difficult conditions, 
while needing to remain reactive and adaptable to crises and requirements;  
234. Supports all the Court of Auditors’ recommendations in respect of the chapter on ‘External relations, 
aid and enlargement’, in particular the recommendations concerning the Directorate-General of the 
Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) and the necessary improvements it needs to make to the 
management of the budget for the common foreign and security policy;  
235. Stresses the need for greater transparency in the management of funds allocated to election obser ­
vation missions; calls on the Commission to send a report to the budgetary authority for each 
financial year on the costs incurred for each mission, detailing all the budget items, including costs 
associated with external service providers;  
236. Draws attention to the need to re-use election observation mission materials (furniture, computers, 
etc.) in other electoral missions or by Union delegations in order to maximise their use;EN L 308/58 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
237. Welcomes the development of an improved budget support risk management framework by the 
Commission (in full application from 1 January 2013) as part of the new budget support guidelines 
in response to a key recommendation from the Court of Auditors;  
238. Notes, however, in respect of budget support, the reservations and warnings issued by the Court of 
Auditors concerning the inherent risks of irregularity, fraud and corruption; reiterates its very firm 
belief that budget support, while remaining an important channel for external aid, must be subject to 
robust political, legal and audit-related preconditions;  
239. Welcomes the results of the evaluation report of the effectiveness of the Union aid channelled through 
civil society organisations (CSO-s); draws attention to one of the main recommendations of the report 
to reduce the negative impact of cumbersome procedures on the effectiveness of the programmes 
implemented by CSO-s and welcomes the fact that new options are put in place to simplify access to 
funding;  
240. Welcomes the fact that the Commission regards the visibility of Union’s projects as a key element in 
good project implementation and that it has been made obligatory to prepare a communication plan 
for each project;  
241. Notes with satisfaction that the Court of Auditors’ estimated error rate for external aid under the 
Union’s budget has been below materiality for two consecutive years; is concerned, however, that 
interim and final payments were affected by material error and that the overall frequency of errors in 
payments detected by the Court was higher than in the two previous years (33 % in 2011, up from 
23 % in 2010 and 22 % in 2009);  
242. Is concerned that EuropeAid’s and DG ECHO’s supervisory and control systems were again found to 
be only partially effective; points, in particular, to the need to improve those systems in delegations; 
calls on the Commission to set aside sufficient resources for delegation staff to perform monitoring 
and supervision activities in a timely and satisfactory manner; welcomes the introduction of the new 
version of the six-monthly External Assistance Management Report in July 2011, which aims to 
strengthen the accountability links between delegations and EuropeAid headquarters;  
243. Reiterates its concerns about the high frequency of encoding errors in the external aid management 
information system (CRIS), which may compromise the reliability of the data used for the preparation 
of the annual accounts; calls on the Commission to continue investing in the improvement of data 
quality and the development of CRIS functionalities, in particular linking audit findings to the recovery 
of funds (  1 ); 
244. Looks forward to seeing the first results of the Commission’s new methodology for calculating the 
residual error rate, to be applied for the first time across the external relations directorates in the 
financial year 2012;  
245. Joins the Court of Auditors in its strong concerns about the inadequacy of staff resources for aid 
management, in particular in EuropeAid’s Internal Audit Unit and delegations, and the potential 
detrimental effects of the high turnover rate of contractual staff in headquarters and the Commission 
reorganisation of mid-2011 on aid management; appeals to Council, as the other arm of the 
budgetary authority, to take its responsibility in ensuring that aid can continue to be managed in 
accordance with the highest standards in future years;  
246. Notes that in 2011, the first full year of operation of the European External Action Service (EEAS), 
EEAS and Commission staff in delegations were separated in terms of their allocation and funding; is 
concerned that in 2011, at least 43 person-years allocated to EuropeAid were used by the EEAS, over 
and above the agreed flexibility limits defined in the Working Arrangements negotiated between both 
organisations; urges the EEAS and the Commission to fully respect the Working Arrangements, seeing 
in particular to the fact that EuropeAid staff focus on ensuring appropriate aid management, in order 
to avoid putting the sound financial management of Union’s assistance at risk;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/59  
( 1 ) See also Special Report No 5/2012 of the Court of Auditors, ‘The Common External Relations Information System 
(CRIS)’.
247. Emphasises the fact that the envisaged reinforcement of EuropeAid staffing in the Neighbourhood 
region should not be achieved by a reduction and transfer to the neighbourhood of staff managing 
Union’s aid to Least Developed Countries and other Low Income Countries in other regions; is of the 
opinion that if additional needs arise, they must be met with additional staff;  
248. Urges the Commission and the EEAS to focus more on results and impact measurement in the design 
of the new spending programmes under the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the 
period 2014-2020, inter alia, by using pre-defined, country-specific, clear, transparent and measurable 
indicators adapted to the specificities and objectives of each instrument; supports the Court of 
Auditors’ recommendation that the Commission should define policy objectives to demonstrate 
better how it secures Union added value during the next programming period; reiterates its call for 
associating all relevant stakeholders, including civil society and local authorities in partner countries, in 
the evaluation phase of Union’s assistance;  
249. Is concerned by the difference in the methodologies applied by the Court of Auditors for the 
calculation of the error rate for transactions for external relations, aid and enlargement in the 
general budget on the one hand and for the level of error for payments from the EDFs on the 
other hand; takes note that the Court of Auditors has decided to align its methodology from 2012 
onwards in order to provide Parliament with a uniform picture of the activities in the area of the 
external action of the Union;  
250. Following the creation of the EEAS, requests a clear allocation and coordination of roles and respon ­
sibilities of the Commission and the EEAS as regards programming and implementation of the budget 
in third countries;  
251. Asks the Commission to report before July 2013 on the number of NGOs to which the Union 
contributes but which do not generate any revenue other than funding from government agencies;  
252. Calls for a detailed summary of the allocation of funding in Libya; calls for clarification as to whether 
the subdelegation of the Union ambassador in Libya has been revoked;  
253. Calls on the Commission to use a ‘traffic light’ system in the progress reports, for ease of reference, in 
order to show what has improved or deteriorated from one year to the next;  
Aid to Haiti  
254. Is concerned to find that the performance indicators for the budget support to the Republic of Haiti 
have not been made public; urges the Commission to make public those indicators and the respective 
assessments of the Government of Haiti’s performance in order to qualify for budget support;  
255. Notes that new criteria for budget support are set out in the Commission’s policy ‘The future 
approach to EU budget support to third countries’; calls on the Commission to apply these criteria 
from 2013 onwards in a transparent way to the budget support for the Government of Haiti;  
256. Deeply regrets that, in spite of what was promised, the Commission has still not published a list of 
Union funded projects in Haiti; calls on the Commission to publish this list without delay and to 
provide an assessment of the sustainability of these projects in a five-year perspective;  
257. Urges the Commission to carry out the postponed first ever overall impact evaluation of the Union’s 
aid programme for Haiti in 2013 and to produce a report on this for the discharge authority;  
258. Is concerned about the findings of the Court of Auditors, contained in its Special Reports Nos 1/2012 
and 13/2012 on the Effectiveness of European Union Development Aid for Food security in Sub- 
Saharan Africa and on the European Union Development Assistance for Drinking Water Supply and 
Basic Sanitation in Sub-Saharan Countries respectively, which raise concerns about sustainability of the 
Union aid; welcomes the Court of Auditors’ recommendations contained in those reports and urges 
the Commission to take those recommendations on board in order to maximise the benefits from 
Union’s development expenditure;EN L 308/60 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
259. Welcomes the creation, under the new Financial Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012, of Union 
Trust Funds, which will increase the visibility of Union action and allow for stricter control over the 
delivery chain of Union funds; asks the Commission to report to Parliament on the effectiveness of 
those funds;  
Research and other internal policies  
260. Is concerned that the research framework programmes are implemented under centralised direct and 
centralised indirect management involving six Commission directorates-general and two executive 
agencies; notes that in addition, parts of the budget are implemented under indirect centralised 
management by joint undertakings and the European Investment Bank;  
261. Regrets that the large number of Commission services involved in that policy area renders decision- 
making and the lines of responsibilities opaque; calls on the Commission to review the distribution of 
Commissioners’ portfolios in order to better reflect competences distribution of the committees of 
Parliament and, as it is, wide spread practice in Member States;  
262. Is concerned about the delay in dismantling the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) in Lithuania, due 
to conflicts between the authorities and the contractors; welcomes and supports the fact that the 
Commission and the international donor community decided to suspend financial support for the 
project, in line with the recommendations of Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, until the 
conflict has been solved;  
263. Is deeply concerned by the current deficiency in viable knowledge on the amounts necessary to 
complete the whole decommissioning process; acknowledges that considerable amounts are still 
needed in this process and deplores the fact that Member States have failed to set up the necessary 
mechanisms to ensure this additional funding; reiterates and stresses that the final responsibility for 
the safe closure of nuclear power plants lies with the Member State in which the power plant is 
situated; notes that failure to comply with this obligation puts Union citizens at risk;  
264. Notes that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) commissioned expert 
reports from Swedish experts (SKB), among others, which confirmed that GNS fuel elements 
containers are safe; notes with concern that this documentation for the fuel element containers, 
which has long been available, was not forwarded to the Lithuanian Approval Authority; notes 
that as long as the fuel elements are not stored in the containers, the Ignalina power station must 
be administered as if it were in operation, which means that the 2 000 or so employees must 
continue to be financed by the Union; calls on the Commission to accept no excuses from the 
Lithuanian Government which would cause the authorisation and the project to be further delayed; 
asks that the Commission set down a rigid timetable and threaten to impose sanctions if it is not 
adhered to;  
265. Calls on Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia to establish decommissioning plans, including detailed 
financial envelopes, explaining how the closure of the nuclear power plants will be financed;  
Error rate compared to effectiveness  
266. Notes that the Court of Auditors estimated the most likely error rate in a spending area that is mainly 
under centralised management at 3 % in 2011, which is more than twice as high as in 2010 with 
1,4 %;  
Sources of errors  
267. Notes that the principle risk of irregularity is that beneficiaries may overstate eligible costs; such a risk 
is exacerbated by the complexity of rules for calculating eligible costs; in addition in certain areas the 
implementing bodies apply rules differently; ineligible personnel costs and costs linked to commercial 
activities represent additional sources of error; regrets that the Commission did not react in time;  
268. Finds it unacceptable that the Court of Auditors also found weaknesses in the work of independent 
auditors certifying cost claims of beneficiaries: in 25 out of 31 cases where auditors had issued an 
unqualified opinion the Court of Auditors detected errors; is worried by such a manifest lack of 
professionalism;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/61
269. Is satisfied, however, that the Court of Auditors considers the  ex-post  audits to be effective;  
270. Deplores the fact that the Court of Auditors found the supervisory and control systems under the 
Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) — ICT Policy Support programme (ICT- 
PSP) to be ineffective; calls on the Commission to bring these supervisory and control systems up to 
speed without delay;  
271. Takes note of the Court of Auditors’ conclusions that the payments for the year ended 31 December 
2011 for research and other internal policies were affected by material error and that the examined 
supervisory and control systems for research and other internal policies were partially effective; regrets 
that the Court of Auditors’ report provides no detailed information on the expenditure for the area of 
freedom, security and justice;  
272. Emphasises the high importance of chapter 18 02 – Solidarity – External borders, return, visa policy 
and free movement of people for the security and economy of the Union; calls on the Commission to 
improve its budgetary planning;  
273. Takes note of the reservations made by the Commission’s Directorate-General for Home Affairs in its 
annual activity report of 2011 regarding the reputational risks due to delays in implementing SIS II; 
takes note of the financial risk resulting from the residual error rate in the non-audited population of 
grants of the financial programmes ‘Prevention, preparedness and consequence management of 
terrorism and other security related risks’ and ‘Prevention of and fight against crime’; calls on the 
Commission to pursue the corrective measures announced;  
Reporting and financial corrections  
274. Recognises that the number of participants in the seventh framework programme (FP7) has signifi ­
cantly increased to almost 20 000 and that inexperience, in combination with a complex set of rules, 
could lead to errors; encourages the Commission to continue to provide guidance and feedback to 
participants;  
275. Finds it incomprehensible that auditors of beneficiaries submit erroneous certificates on the financial 
statements; believes that the Commission must focus on giving guidance on the professional qualifi ­
cations of private auditors and providing additional expertise;  
276. Notes the examples given by the Court of Auditors on errors in declarations of personnel and indirect 
costs; notes that the Horizon 2020 programme proposal introduced significant simplifications of the 
rules for these cost categories; considers that these simplifications are essential if there is to be a 
significant reduction in the error rate;  
277. Acknowledges that the Commission, when reviewing the  ex ante  control procedures, undertakes to 
strike a balance between early approval and control;  
278. Notes furthermore that under the FP7 audit strategy beneficiaries receiving 48 % of the FP7 budget 
have been audited;  
279. Also takes note of the fact that the Commission uses the simplified extrapolation procedure, based on 
flat rates, for corrections, which could speed up the recovery process if the beneficiaries cooperate 
fully;  
Recommendations  
280. Urges the Commission to improve cooperation among all the directorates-general and other bodies 
involved, and render the division of labour, decision-making procedures and lines of responsibility 
between them more transparent;  
281. Fully supports the Court of Auditors’ recommendations  
— to raise awareness among beneficiaries and external auditors,  
— to familiarise external audit firms with the Commission guidelines, and  
— to put in place an audit strategy for the ICT-PSP programme;EN L 308/62 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013
Education and culture  
282. Calls on the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) to revise the one-sided 
and inadequate financial ratios established in order to evaluate the financial situation of beneficiaries 
and to decide upon the level of grant instalments, even jeopardising projects selected by not granting 
the usual payment of first instalments and waiting till the project is finished and reported back; 
reminds the EACEA that the efficient monitoring and control of projects includes a realistic 
assessment of the environment of small and medium enterprises and very small organisations;  
283. Is concerned by the significant errors in the underlying transactions by the EACEA in the context of 
the Lifelong Learning Programme (2007–2013) that were found through  ex-post  controls; notes that 
these errors are mainly due to the lack of adequate justifying documents from beneficiaries and the 
non-respect of eligibility rules; encourages the EACEA to further improve its control systems, to adapt 
them to the different kinds of beneficiaries, and to raise awareness of their financial obligations and 
controls;  
284. Welcomes the improvements to the management and control systems of the National Agencies and 
National Authorities and the fact that the error rate for the implementation of the programmes 
through National Agencies in 2011 has dropped down to 1 %, significantly lower than in previous 
years;  
285. Regrets that for the fourth consecutive year, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Communication 
still has a reservation in the Annual Activity Report regarding the non-compliance with copyright 
legislation despite the action plan adopted in 2009;  
286. Notes the successful actions that the Commission has undertaken in the field of sport; nevertheless 
calls upon the Commission to be more ambitious with the tools and budget it has, in order to prepare 
for the sports programme in 2014;  
Administrative and other expenditure  
287. Calls on the Commission not to reimburse any more travel costs of advisors to Commissioners whose 
work has not produced any tangible findings until an added value of their work can be proven;  
288. Notes with concern the finding of the Court of Auditors that in 15 out of 28 audited cases, the 
information available in the Office for Administration and Payment of Individual entitlements (PMO) 
on the personal and family situation of the staff members was not up to date; recommends that the 
Commission follow up the recommendation of the Court of Auditors to request staff to deliver at 
appropriate intervals documents confirming their personal situation and that it implements a system 
for the timely monitoring of these documents;  
289. Calls on the Commission to execute an in-depth study on the differences in required qualifications and 
the granted privileges, working conditions, allowances, entitled vacation days as well as pay levels for 
positions for civil servants and foreign services between Union and Member States located in the same 
working place and on the question of whether these differences legitimise the differences in remun ­
eration of delegated national compared with Union civil servants, taking into account the relevant 
applicable tax system by comparing cases with standardised family situations;  
290. Notes with concern that the Commission is unable to give a full overview of the costs incurred for 
hiring external staff and temporary agents on a yearly basis; requests that those costs are systematically 
monitored and requests that they are made publically available;  
291. Calls on the Commission to make more use of the available technologies such as teleconferences and 
teleworking in order to reduce the costs of buildings and travel; requests the Commission to estimate 
possible financial savings which could be achieved with the increased use of these technologies and to 
submit the results to Parliament by September 2013;  
292. Demands the establishment of an interinstitutional database for studies, so as to avoid multiple 
financing of the same issues and to achieve an exchange of results;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/63
OLAF  
293. Has been informed by the OLAF Supervisory Committee about breaches of fundamental rights during 
OLAF investigations; is very concerned about the information received in this regard and calls for full 
transparency concerning these incidents, regardless of the identity of the person(s) involved;  
294. Notes the numerous attempts made to obscure clarification of the allegations made about OLAF’s 
investigation methods; regards this as inappropriate and demands full clarification of these allegations;  
Eurobarometer  
295. Is concerned about the criticisms, mainly voiced in scientific publications, of the Eurobarometer’s 
survey methods and calls on the Commission to give a detailed opinion of those criticisms;  
Getting results from the Union budget  
296. Welcomes the fact that the Court of Auditors presents a report on ‘getting results from the budget’ for 
the second time; asks the Court of Auditors to extend its assessment to other services of the 
Commission, in particular DG EMPL, DG MARE and to the Secretariat general of the Commission;  
Evaluation report on the Union’s finances based on results achieved  
297. Notes that the report on the evaluation of the Union’s finances based on the results achieved 
(COM(2012) 675) has been adopted by the Commission on 21 November 2012, thus giving both 
Parliament and the Court of Auditors only a limited time to review and reply; reiterates its previous 
request to the Commission to present the evaluation report in the competent committee and plenary 
when the Court of Auditors’ Annual Report is presented;  
298. Considers that progress concerning the evaluation report relating to the financial year 2011 has been 
made as that report provides certain performance-related information which became available in 2011 
for funding under all of the main budget headings and summarises evaluation results on certain 
financial programmes for each budget heading;  
299. Regrets, nevertheless, that this report provides only summaries of various evaluations relating to 
different programmes and covering divergent timeframe, without any comprehensive assessment of 
the results achieved in 2011 by the Commission when pursuing its policies;  
300. Shares the view of the Court of Auditors (  1 ) that the evaluation report does not yet provide sufficient 
evidence and reliable information on achievements resulting from the policies of the Union and, 
therefore, can not fulfil the role which it should play in the context of the discharge procedure;  
301. Notes with satisfaction that some evaluations contributed to improve final impact of the programmes; 
encourages the Commission to take on board the main findings of those evaluations when shaping its 
policies;  
302. Calls on the Commission to inform the budgetary authority on an annual basis about the devel ­
opment of accounts outside the Union budget, including their cash-flow development as well as the 
purpose of each account;  
303. Points out that the presentation of those summaries by budget headings following the structure of the 
2007-2013 Multiannual Financial Framework does not constitute as such an evaluation on Union’s 
finances;  
304. Considers that the structure of the report consisting of a variety of summary assessments presented, 
comprising interim, mid-term,  ex post , and final evaluation, makes it difficult to draw consistent 
conclusions in terms of performance;  
305. Notes that according to the Commission itself, impact evaluations on the programmes usually refer to 
funds committed at least three to five years previously; insists on receiving an evaluation focussing on 
the performance observed in the preceding financial year, i.e. measures taken to accomplish the 
Europe 2020 objectives annually, in full accordance with Article 318 TFEU;EN L 308/64 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) Letter of Mr Caldeira to President Barroso, 20 December 2012 with the reply of the European Court of Auditors to 
the second European Commission evaluation report provided for in Article 318 TFEU.
306. Calls on the Commission to broaden the coverage of its assessment and to develop a real cost 
effectiveness approach aiming at measuring the results obtained in pursuing its political objectives 
on the basis of the finances and staff devoted to the realisation of those objectives;  
307. Calls on the Commission to ensure that evaluations are conducted independently; notes that the 
resulting reports should be shared as soon as possible with the relevant committees of Parliament;  
308. Asks the Commission to outline in time for the discharge procedure 2012 a new system of 
management and performance information including the design and the role of the evaluation 
report taking on board the recommendations of Parliament as developed in paragraphs 327 and 
328 of this resolution and to present it to the discharge authority;  
309. Asks the Commission for this purpose to establish a reliable system of data collection on the 
performance to identify outcomes and impacts when they arise (  1 ); 
Commission’s management reporting on the achievements of the year  
310. Welcomes the improvements noted by the Court of Auditors in the Commission’s self-assessment of 
performance in its annual activity reports, in particular as regards reporting on policy achievements in 
the first part of those reports;  
311. Regrets, nevertheless, that the limited number of general objectives and impact indicators that the 
Directions General are requested to define remain affected by weaknesses limiting their usefulness (  2 ); 
312. Also regrets that most indicators and targets related to the entire 2007-2013 period do not use 
interim indicators or milestones; insists in this context that impact indicators should have deadlines 
and quantified targets associated;  
313. Is worried that the directorates-general of the Commission did not set nor report on objectives for 
operational activities relating to economy including the cost of inputs or efficiency and the relation 
between inputs, outputs and results;  
314. Reminds the Commission of the rules concerning the rotation of senior staff in the Commission 
administration; confirms the need for those requirements in order to create transparency and avoid 
taking information hostage; calls on the Commission to implement this principle across the board and 
underlines the importance of leading by example and the taking of responsibility at the highest levels;  
315. Regrets also that the description of the policy achievements in part 1 of the annual activity reports is 
not sufficiently results-oriented and that the Court of Auditors’ examination of management plan and 
annual activity reports did not reveal any significant progress in this area;  
316. Insists on the need to ensure the consistency between the objectives, indicators and targets foreseen in 
the management plan and reported on in the annual activity reports;  
317. Insists also on the need to explain why the performance achieved did not meet the relevant objective 
or target in the annual activity report;  
318. Points out that according to points 10.17 and 10.18 of the Court of Auditors’ Annual Report, the 
accuracy of the evaluation performed by DG AGRI and DG REGIO is largely reliant on the quality of 
data supplied by the Member States; encourages the Commission services to issue guidelines on data 
input and to envisage to provide Member States with incentives to supply high quality performance 
data;  
319. Notes that according to the annual activity reports of the Commission Secretary-General, the 
Directors-General of the Commission have ‘aligned’ the general and specific objectives in their 
management plans with the Europe 2020 strategy for Growths and Jobs;EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/65  
( 1 ) Letter of Mr Caldeira to President Barroso, 20 December 2012 with the reply of the European Court of Auditors to 
the second European Commission evaluation report provided for in Article 318 TFEU.  
( 2 ) The Court of Auditors’ Annual Report 2011, examples in point 10.18 et seq.
Europe 2020 strategy  
320. Reiterates the fact that Europe 2020 (  1 ), launched by President Barroso in 2010, is the main project of 
the Commission, aimed at delivering growth that is smart, sustainable and inclusive; points out that 
this strategy is focused on five ambitious goals, measured by quantified targets in the areas of 
employment, innovation, education, poverty and climate/energy;  
321. Notes that Eurostat is responsible for ensuring the statistical support for the strategy in particular in 
producing and supplying the relevant statistical data and ensuring high quality standards for data;  
322. Notes that Eurostat again failed to deal properly with sensitive information, for example in the case of 
the data on Greece; calls on the Commission to undertake more stringent quality reviews and ensure 
that Eurostat guarantees that it will be accurate in its presentation of statistical data; calls for a report 
on this matter to be produced by March 2014;  
323. Insists on the need to strengthen the credibility of the European statistical system; welcomes the 
recommendations made in this regard by the Court of Auditors in its Special Report No 12/2012 to 
move ‘towards a system of European Statistics which guarantees professional independence, sufficient 
resources and strong supervision including sanctions for cases where quality standards are not 
respected’ (  2 ); 
324. Underlines that the Union growth and jobs strategy is not based on activities led by each individual 
DG but encompasses seven cross-cutting flagships initiatives which are implemented each time by 
several directorates-general resulting into challenges concerning coordination and cooperation within 
the Commission;  
325. Notes that the coordination between the services of the Commission in the framework of the flagship 
initiatives has taken various forms of inter services consultation, sometimes informal ones (  3 ); deplores, 
nevertheless, that the nine groups of Commissioners set up by President Barroso in April 2010 met 
only on rare occasions (  4 ), resulting in an insufficient use of this new mode of coordination in 2011; 
deplores the fact that no specific mechanism has been installed to ensure a satisfactory coordination of 
the implementation of all the flagships initiatives;  
326. Regrets that the launching of the Europe 2020 Strategy in 2010 did not coincide with the time frame 
of the new programming period 2014-2020 and deplores that this will cause some delay in the 
achievement of the strategy, in those cases where the Member States have not managed to adapt their 
national and Union funded programmes for sustainable, smart and inclusive growth;  
327. Asks all the services of the Commission involved in the Europe 2020 Strategy to define in their 
management plan a limited number of simple targets, meeting the requirements of the Court of 
Auditors in terms of relevance, comparability and reliability in order to annually measure in their 
annual activity reports the performance of the Commission in the achievement of the Strategy;  
328. Asks the Commission to fundamentally modify the structure of its evaluation report foreseen by 
Article 318 TFEU, distinguishing the internal policies from the external ones and focussing inside the 
‘internal policies part’ of this report on the Europe 2020 strategy as being the growth and jobs, the 
economic and social policy of the Union; insists that the emphasis should be put on the progress 
made in the achievement of the flagships initiatives;EN L 308/66 Official Journal of the European Union 16.11.2013  
( 1 ) Communication from the Commission of 3 March 2010 entitled ‘Europe 2020 — A strategy for smart, sustainable 
and inclusive growth’ (COM(2010) 2020).  
( 2 ) Special Report No 12/2012 of the Court of Auditors entitled Did the Commission and Eurostat improve the process 
for producing reliable and credible European statistics?, p. 6.  
( 3 ) See for instance the replies given by Commissioner Andor to the written questions 46 and 47 in preparation of the 
hearing in the Committee on Budgetary Control on 26 November 2012.  
( 4 ) In 2011, there were altogether 24 meetings of the 9 dedicated Commissioners groups with 7 meetings of the MFF 
group (see replies given by Commissioner Oettinger).
329. Endorses the main conclusions drawn by the Court of Auditors as regards the results of its audits on 
performance:  
— in order to produce good results, it is important to clearly identify the needs that the programmes 
are intended to fulfil,  
— good design (establishing a link between activities, outputs, results and impacts) of both 
programmes and of the individual projects within the programmes is essential for sound 
financial management,  
— in time for the 2012 discharge procedure, the Commission should report on how it intends to 
secure the added value of Union spending, in accordance with the principles set out by the Court 
of Auditors in point 10.31 of its Annual Report 2011 (scale and effects of the expenditure, trans- 
frontier effects, reasonable concentration and selective approach to expenditure outside the Union) 
and to develop corresponding, meaningful performance indicators;  
330. Notes with satisfaction that the Commission has a system in place to follow-up all recommendations 
of the Court of Auditors’ special reports on performance audit (see Special Report No 19/2012 (  1 )); 
requests that the Commission strengthen the follow-up in order to respond in a timely efficient and 
effective manner to the recommendations of the Court of Auditors and the discharge authority;  
The 2011 special reports of the Court of Auditors  
331. Welcomes the fact that its Committee on Budgetary Control drew up separate working documents or 
reports on the Court of Auditors’ individual special reports, the findings of which can be consulted in 
a separate document (  2 ); 
332. Is of the opinion that the political appreciation of findings in the special reports should be an integral 
part of the discharge procedure;  
333. Welcomes, therefore, the ongoing consultations among its Committee on Budgetary Control, the 
Conference of Committee Chairs and the Conference of Presidents with a view to identifying the 
most appropriate way of taking the findings of the special reports into consideration, thereby bene ­
fitting to the fullest from the audit work of the Court of Auditors;  
334. Calls on its bodies to find a viable and lasting solution in time for the 2012 discharge procedure.EN 16.11.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 308/67  
( 1 ) Special Report No 19/2012 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘2011 report on the follow-up of the European Court of 
Auditors’ special reports’.  
( 2 ) Texts adopted, P7_TA(2013)0123 (see page 68 of this Official Journal).