C 67/62
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
8.2.2022
Thursday 10 June 2021
33.
Is deeply concerned by the low level of compliance with the GRECO recommendations contained in the Fourth Round Evaluation Report — only one of the fourteen recommendations has been implemented satisfactorily, seven recommendations have been partly implemented and the remaining six recommendations have not been implemented at all;
34.
Urges all Member States to prohibit cases of three-digit million euro payments of subsidies to individual natural persons under the new multiannual financial framework (MFF) and to move towards Parliament’s position of guaranteeing full transparency and the possibility to aggregate payments as well as digital monitoring and audit procedures across Member States’ borders in programmes under shared management;
35.
Calls on the Council in the ongoing negotiations on the CAP Regulation to pay due consideration to budgetary effectiveness and fairer and more transparent distribution of direct payments, to move towards Parliament’s position of establishing specific caps per natural person for both pillars of the CAP, as well as degressivity, mandatory capping and redistributive payments to ensure a positive perception of the CAP overall by EU citizens; emphasises that negotiations in the Council must not be impacted by conflicts of interest and that no minister, member or representative of a national government must participate in negotiations while affected by a conflict of interest; finds it unacceptable that Prime Minister Babiš, while being the beneficial owner of the Agrofert group, took part in the negotiations on the CAP and fought against the capping of subsidies; strongly underlines that the caps per natural person for the first and second pillar of the CAP must be uniformly applicable, including to members of national governments in order to prevent them from negotiating in the Council to their own benefit;
36.
Strongly disapproves of oligarchic structures drawing on EU agricultural and cohesion funds, whereby a small minority of beneficiaries receive the vast majority of EU funds, and calls on the Commission, the Council and the European Council to prevent the fostering of such structures, which are decreasing the competitiveness of small and medium-sized farmers and family farms, which should be the core beneficiaries of the CAP;
37.
Stresses its grave concern over the fact that Prime Minister Babiš is in a conflict of interest while participating in decision-making on the alignment of the CAP with the overall European climate policy goals, as the business interests of the Agrofert group might override the public interest in supporting more sustainable agriculture and limiting the negative impacts of climate change;
38.
Considers that the lack of action by the Czech Government in tackling the conflicts of interest of Prime Minister Babiš has a negative impact on the functioning of the Czech State authorities, including the law-enforcement authorities and management and control systems, and on compliance with EU legislation;
39.
Calls on the Commission to assess the above situation, together with Prime Minister Babiš’s influence on Czech media and on the judicial system, with a view to identifying breaches of rule of law and, if confirmed and on the ground of its findings, activate in due time the conditionality mechanism for the protection of the Union’s budget;
40.
Is still concerned about the increasing concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few oligarchs (10);
41.
Notes that there are ongoing investigations and audits at both national and European level into potential conflicts of interest and the use of EU funds; is worried about concerns expressed in the Commission’s 2020 rule of law report that high-level corruption cases are not pursued sufficiently and some gaps have been identified in the integrity frameworks applicable to members of parliament;
42.
Calls on the Council and the European Council to take all necessary and appropriate measures to prevent conflicts of interest in line with Article 61(1) of the Financial Regulation; expresses concerns that the Czech Prime Minister has been, and is still, actively part of negotiations on the EU budget and EU programmes while being in a conflict of interest; asks the Council and the European Council to explain to Parliament how they plan to take into account and act with respect to Prime Minister Babiš’s participation in CAP- and EU budget-related decision-making upon the conclusion in the Commission’s audit reports;
(10)
Reporters Without Borders, Czech Republic, https://rsf.org/en/czech-republic [accessed 2.6.2021].