Debate: Discharge
Date: WEDNESDAY, 10 APRIL 2024
Speaker: Johannes Hahn
Language: EN

As this is the last discharge of this legislature, I would like to focus today on what have been our main common challenges and achievements. The Union faced a number of unprecedented crises over the past years: the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its far-reaching consequences — the surge in energy and food prices and a new macroeconomic environment with a sharp rise in interest rates and inflation — as well as a wide array of humanitarian crises and environmental disasters. The Union budget played a crucial role in enabling the European Union to respond effectively to those challenges. So I am grateful to this House for having provided continuous support for all the different measures we proposed to mitigate the consequences of all these crises and challenges. We shifted the focus of our programming: at the same time, we set up the NextGenerationEU and the Recovery and Resilience Facility to provide significant financial support to Member States, boosting investments and reforms, and effectively supporting the economic recovery in the European Union. This inevitably put pressure on Member States’ administrative and absorption capacities. During this period, the Commission has also further reinforced the budget performance framework. In 2021, the Commission adopted its communication on the performance framework for 2021-2027. This framework comprises all the tools and procedures necessary to set objectives and measures, and monitor progress towards them. Above all, it allows us to communicate effectively with stakeholders and citizens on how the budget adds value to the lives of European citizens. Notably, under this framework, the Commission has continued to integrate horizontal priorities such as climate, biodiversity and gender equality into the budget, and important progress has already been achieved. In addition, the Commission has started to implement two large-scale performance-based instruments on the 2021-2027 period, namely the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the new delivery model for the common agricultural policy.  Finally, over the last years, we have also strengthened the protection of the Union budget in several ways. I would like to thank you for Parliament’s support and cooperation to reach an agreement on last year’s revision of the Financial Regulation. The final text contains significant improvements to better protect the Union budget. One of them is the extension of the early detection and exclusion system to shared management, to strengthen our capacity to exclude from funding recipients who are in breach of EU rules. Concretely, this means that two thirds of the Union budget that were previously not covered by the system will now be covered from 2028 onwards. We will also have more transparency for the public on who gets Union funding. The improved financial transparency system means that information on beneficiaries of Union funding will, in the future, be concentrated in a single place and no longer scattered over different websites. Another very important improvement is the compulsory feed of data-mining and risk-scoring tool for audit and control purposes. It will further strengthen the detection and prevention of fraud, corruption, conflicts of interest and double-funding. I would also like to mention two other key achievements from this legislature, which are crucial to strengthening the protection of the budget. First, the entry into force of the Conditionality Regulation in 2021. Here, for the first time, the Union has a specific tool designed to remedy adverse effects of breaches of the principles of the rule of law in a Member State on the financial interests of the Union and the Commission implemented it. Secondly, the set-up of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which started its operation in 2021. Within their respective mandates, OLAF’s and the EPPO’s activities are complementary in protecting the Union’s financial interests. Effective cooperation between OLAF and EPPO is therefore essential. More generally, the Commission has kept on closely working with Member States and other partners to implement European funds in a reasonable manner. To conclude, I would like to emphasise that the Commission upholds the highest standards of transparency and accountability. The Commission remains committed to ensuring that the European Union budget and NextGenerationEU are spent in line with the applicable rules and deliver results on the ground. The Commission stands, of course, ready to follow up on the European Parliament’s concerns.