MEPs on the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee are threatening to withhold approval of the EU’s 2009 accounts unless the European Commission puts pressure on member states to improve how they control the spending of EU funds.
Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German Liberal MEP who is drafting the committee’s report on the EU’s spending in 2009, warned the Commission on Tuesday (25 January) that it had to meet a list of demands before MEPs would approve the 2009 accounts.
He said he had the support of the four biggest political groups to delay approval until the Commission meets the MEPs’ demands. One of those demands is for the Commission to suspend payments to member states automatically if they do not have adequate controls in place or if there is a high rate of error in their spending.
Chatzimarkakis hopes that delaying approval of the accounts – known as discharge – will put pressure on the Commission to demand action from member states.
The Parliament wants member states to provide assurances each year that EU money has been spent correctly and adequate controls are in place. But only four countries – Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK – have agreed to submit such national management declarations.
Withholding approval of the accounts this year would be a blow to the Commission at a time when it is preparing proposals for the EU’s multi-annual financial (MFF) framework after 2013.
The Commission wants to make a convincing case for a large EU budget able to finance the EU’s policy priorities including cohesion funds. Five member states, including Germany, France and the UK, have already called for the MFF to be capped at current spending levels plus an annual increase of less than the rate of inflation.
An MEP on the committee said Algirdas Šemeta, the European commissioner responsible for auditing and anti-fraud, was “working hard” to prevent a postponement.
A spokesperson for Šemeta, said that he was maintaining contact with MEPs to clarify any open issues.
The Parliament committee is devoting particular attention to how member states spend their share of cohesion funds – aid to the poorest regions and sectors of society. This makes up 35% of the EU’s annual €130 billion budget. MEPs want the Commission to get tougher with Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania and Spain, which have the worst records on spending EU funds.
Catherine Day, the secretary-general of the Commission, who appeared before the committee on Tuesday said that the Commission had already taken measures to improve the recovery of irregular expenditure of cohesion funds.
Day said it was the member states that were primarily responsible for preventing, detecting and correcting payment errors. The Commission was looking to step up “significantly the level of responsibility of member states” for spending cohesion funds, she said. “We are working on reliability, a further decrease in the error rates and the liability of the management declarations,” Day told MEPs.
Day said the Commission was exploring the possibility of drafting contracts with national governments that would “set out in advance the results they will deliver”.
“We would like to get away from what I could call the culture of entitlement,” she said.
MEPs also want commissioners themselves to sign annual activity reports for their Commission departments. Day rejected that demand, arguing that the Commission already takes collective political responsibility for how it manages the EU budget.
The final adoption of the committee’s discharge report is scheduled for the end of March.