WRITTEN QUESTION E-1896/99

by Raffaele Costa (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(29 October 1999)

Subject: Youth for Europe Programme

Would the Commission state what agencies (public or private), institutions, companies, cooperatives and individuals have been allocated funding (specifying whether payments have already been made) under the Youth for Europe Programme, aimed at involving young people in the process of European integration (1995-1999) (budget ECU 126 million, equal to approx. LIT 244 billion) and how much each of them has been granted?

Has it checked how the amounts have actually been used and whether the proposed measures have been successfully implemented?

Answer given by Ms Reding on behalf of the Commission

(9 November 1999)

A list (by project) of organisations that have benefited from a Youth for Europe grant since 1995 has been sent directly to the Honourable Member and Parliament's Secretariat. The broad decentralisation of the administration, which is one of the strong points of the programme, gives rise to a delay between the selection of projects, their implementation, their funding and the transmission of the full details to the Commission. So while the list is not exhaustive, it is representative of all the projects which have enabled more than 200 000 young people to benefit from the programme since 1995.

The beneficiary projects are selected either centrally or decentrally, depending on their nature, by expert juries that consider, in particular, whether the applications are in keeping with the objectives of the programme, including the budgetary balance. The National Agencies play a pivotal role in the various stages of the process (selection, analysis of the reports, contacts with beneficiaries, etc.) and have their own monitoring system. In addition, the Youth for Europe programme is subject to the Commission's own compulsory monitoring procedures. Each project selected is thus subject to an agreement laying down the rules for using the Community grant, at central level and at decentral level. Under the terms of this agreement, the beneficiary promises to submit a final report describing the various actions undertaken as part of the project and accompanied by a final set of accounts for all expenditure relating to the project to the National Agency or the Commission within two months of the end of the contractual period. An advance of 80 % is paid within 30 days of receipt of the duly signed agreement. The remaining balance is paid within 60 days of the National Agency's or the Commission's receipt and approval of the final report. The National Agency and the Commission reserve the right to refuse payment of any balance due if this report is not submitted on time or is judged to be incomplete. If, once the report has been accepted, the final balance due is less than the amount already paid, the beneficiary must reimburse the excess when asked to do so.

In terms of monitoring and control, the agreement states that the beneficiary must provide the National Agency or the Commission with all necessary information on the implementation of the projects referred to therein and must take all necessary action to allow the National Agency, the Commission or the Court of Auditors to conduct monitoring, inspection and auditing visits (e.g. provision of files, accounting documents). These checks and audits can be conducted in situ and consist of an examination of the accounts and supporting documents relating to the various project partners party to the agreements. For this reason, supporting documents must be kept for five years after receipt of the project payment and the end of the project period.

The National Agencies are also party to an agreement with the Commission with regard to the funds they manage at national level. This agreement provides for the same monitoring and control measures as the agreements with beneficiaries. Under this agreement, the National Agency agrees to account to the Commission for the use of the Community funds. To this end, it must submit intermediate and final accounts and statistics to the Commission for each action.

Apart from the checks conducted by each National Agency for the decentralised projects, the financial and budgetary departments of the Commission or the Court of Auditors, if they so request, may conduct checks on the basis of representative samples. Monitoring visits can also be made to the National Agencies. Finally, external assessors evaluate the implementation of the programme for the Commission. An interim evaluation report for the programme was published on 6 February 1998(1), and an invitation to tender for the final evaluation is under way.

As part of the new Youth programme currently under negotiation the Commission plans to put in place a new and improved management and evaluation system based largely on the recommendations of the vade-mecum on grants, which should allow projects to be monitored in real time, at decentralised level as well. The enhanced programme is supported by a new IT system which will allow the various actions in the programmes to be brought together on the basis of the experience gained since the Youth for Europe programme began. This will constitute a further step towards improving the efficient administration and monitoring of the use of Community funds.

(1) COM(98) 52 final.