WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1851/97 by Daniela RASCHHOFER to the Commission. Irregularities in payments from Structural Funds
Date: 1997-05-30
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: Community budget, EU control, European Court of Auditors, Structural Funds, budgetary control, financial year, fraud, report, structural expenditure, use of aid













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91997E1851

WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1851/97 by Daniela RASCHHOFER to the Commission. Irregularities in payments from Structural Funds  


Official Journal C 076 , 11/03/1998 P. 0060 





WRITTEN QUESTION E-1851/97 by Daniela Raschhofer (NI) to the Commission (30 May 1997)Subject: Irregularities in payments from Structural FundsIn April 1997 in his report on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of implementation of the general budget of the EU for the 1995 financial year, Mr Terence Wynn drew attention to irregularities concerning payments from the Structural Funds.Why is the rate of substantial errors detected by the DAS in the 1995 budget in respect of Structural Fund payments estimated at a significantly higher level than the average for budget payments as a whole?In the 1995 financial year payments were often made from the Structural Funds without any justification if Member States reported expenditure substantially higher than the amounts needed to cover the next advance payments. How do you explain this?Can these sums be recovered?If so, when and how?How and where have the sums been held?What happens to the interest yield from sums improperly paid and from unused advances?What data are available on these points in respect of 1996?What action will the Commission take to prevent the abovementioned irregularities in future? How much funding is required by such measures?Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission (16 July 1997)The Commission agrees that the incidence of irregularities in the management of the structural funds in the Member States is too high. However, all errors discovered are corrected. Moreover, in the great majority of cases, as the Commission has made clear in its replies to the Court of auditors' reports, the advance payments made by the Commission to the Member States are nevertheless correct and do not need to be adjusted. This is because the Member States' payment requests are usually for a sum large enough, even after deduction of any ineligible expenditure because of irregularities, to trigger the advance payment made. If, after deduction of known ineligible expenditure, the net amount does not allow payment of the advance requested, the Member State is invited to present a new claim based on eligible expenditure. The question of recovery does not therefore immediately arise. But if, at the closure of the programmes, the Community contributions are higher than the amounts justified by the final expenditure figures declared by the Member State, the Commission makes the necessary recoveries.One of the important objectives of stage III of the SEM 2000 initiative is to address the problem of errors and irregularities in structural fund management. In this context the Commission adopted on 23 April 1997 decisions ((OJ L 146, 5.6.1997. )) clarifying the rules on eligibility of expenditure. It also intends to adopt in the near future a regulation specifying minimum standards for financial control of structural funds operations by the Member States, together with internal guidelines on the circumstances in which, in case of irregularity, it would be appropriate for the Commission to reduce its contribution under the funds to a given programme.