What changed

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on EmploymentTransport and Social AffairsTourism calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

– having regard to the European Court of Auditors’ Annual report on the implementation of the EU budget for the 2022 financial year;

1. Welcomes the findings of the European Court of Auditors (‘the Court’) that the consolidated accounts of the EU for 2022 present fairly, in all material respects, the EU’s financial position; regrets that the level of error for budget expenditure increased from 3 % to 4.2 %; notes that, in line with the Court’s assessment, the errors are both material and pervasive;

– having regard to the European Court of Auditors’ Annual report on EU agencies for the financial year 2022;

2. Notes that the implementation of the 2022 budget was still partly impacted by the late adoption of the MFF Regulation and heavily affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the need to provide complex humanitarian and financial support;

– having regard to the European Commission’s Annual management and performance report for the EU budget 2022;

3. Highlights the decrease, compared to 2021, in funding for calls for proposals under the CEF Transport 2022 funding instrument on projects targeting new, upgraded and improved European transport infrastructure; takes notice that the CEF Transport 2022 calls that were launched during the 3rd quarter of 2022 opened additional funding possibilities with an extra EUR 6 bln. of EU co-funding;

1. Is worried by the fact that by the end of 2022, total outstanding commitments reached a record level of over €450 billion; takes note, however, that the increase is mainly a result of an increased commitment of funds during the second year of implementation of NextGenerationEU (NGEU), as well as the start of 2021- 2027 shared management fund implementation, and that according to the Commission, after a further increase to some €460 billion in 2023, the outstanding commitments should decrease from 2024 until 2027 to €314 billion;

4. Endorses the work of European Climate Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) in effectively managing its delegated programmes and supporting DG MOVE in achieving its strategic objectives as per the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy;

2. Expresses satisfaction that the biggest part of the Union budget spending in 2022 went to the Heading 2 “Cohesion, resilience and values” (EUR 79.1 billion, or 40.4 %); emphasizes that the ESF+ aims to support Member States and regions to achieve high employment levels, fair social protection and a skilled and resilient workforce ready for the future world of work; furthermore, underlines the importance to closely involve regional actors in the implementation of ESF+ funded activities;

5. Notes that 2022 was the second year of Horizon Europe, the Framework Programme supporting transport research and innovation in the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027; welcomes the successful completion of 3 major transport calls in January, April and September, for EUR 122 mln., EUR 253 mln. and EUR 91 mln. respectively, that led to new transport research and innovation projects in the areas of road, aviation and waterborne transport, as well as on infrastructures, multimodal network / traffic management, logistics and new mobility services;

3. Recalls that transparency and accountability in the implementation of the EU Budget is key; stresses in this context the need for further efforts, both from the Commission and Member States, to ensure better transparency of the use of EU taxpayers’ money; insists that the publication of final recipients of EU funding should be a horizontal provision for all categories of EU funding; regrets the interpretation of the Commission of what “final recipients” are in the case of the Recovery and Resilience Facility;

6. Takes notice of the adoption by the Commission of an amended proposal for the revised TEN-T Regulation in June 2022, which aims to strengthen the links with Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, by extending four European Transport Corridors to these neighbouring countries;

4. Recalls that spending under the subheading “Economic, social and territorial cohesion” (Subheading 2a) focuses on reducing development disparities between the different Member States and regions of the EU; stresses the importance of EU cohesion policy in supporting the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights and achieving its headline targets and assisting Member States and regions to harness new opportunities and address challenges, such as globalisation, unemployment, poverty and social exclusion, industrial change, digitalisation and supporting up and re-skilling and lifelong learning;

7. Welcomes action taken by the Commission in December 2022 to speed up the financing of 35 military mobility projects along the TEN-T; notes that accelerated evaluation of the CEF 2021 Military Mobility call triggered the faster award of almost EUR 1 bln. of CEF funds to key dual use infrastructural components;

5. Is greatly worried that the overall level of error, estimated by the European Court of Auditors to 4.2 %, thus is higher compared to 3.0 % in 2021 as well as largely above the 2 % materiality threshold; is particularly worried that the level of error is mainly driven by ‘Cohesion, resilience and values’, which was the biggest contributor to this rate (2.5 %); recognises that the majority of spending in this area is deemed high-risk expenditure as mainly reimbursement-based and often subject to complex rules; notes that the most common errors under the Cohesion heading were ineligible projects and infringements of internal market rules, in particular non-compliance with public procurement and state aid rules; calls for urgent action to decrease the error rate in the future, especially for the new funding period, and calls on the Commission to assist the agencies to improve their internal procedures in order to ensure compliance with applicable public procurement and state aid rules;

8. Recalls the Court’s Special Report 27/2021 “EU Support to tourism – Need for a fresh strategic orientation and a better funding approach”; recalls the Court’s recommendation to the Commission to set out a consolidated new strategy for the EU tourism ecosystem in cooperation with the Member States in order to develop an effective tourism agenda for 2030;

6. Notes that the EU budget’s loss of purchasing power will affect its expenditure to differing degrees, as parts of the EU budget are fixed costs and they typically correlate with inflation, and these budget items will thus increase more than had been expected at the start of the MFF period; acknowledges that a key example of this is administration costs, which are impacted by inflation; notes that in 2022, the Commission already had to allocate an additional €0.2 billion to heading 7 – European Public Administration – because of rising inflation and energy prices;

9. Proposes to grant the Commission and its executive agencies discharge in respect of the implementation of the Union general budget for the financial year 2022 in the fields of Transport and Tourism.

7. Stresses that the Commission should assess the impact on the EU budget of high inflation continuing over several years and identify tools to mitigate resulting key risks; is of the opinion that in this regard, the Commission should protect the EU budget’s ability to meet its legal and contractual commitments, such as rising financing costs;

8. Stresses that the Commission should substantially reduce the level of outstanding commitments; notes that in the light of high outstanding commitments which await payment from future EU budgets, the Commission should identify ways to help Member States’ accelerate the use of EU funds, in particular of shared management funds under the Common Provisions Regulation, while respecting sound financial management;

9. Calls on the Commission to follow up and take necessary action with regards to all errors found by the Court and to implement additional financial corrections, where deemed necessary;

10. Calls on the Commission to promote good working conditions and staff retention policies in order to ensure a stable and resilient workforce;

11. Takes note of the Commission’s commitment to continue its close work with the audit authorities in order to strengthen their capacity to prevent and correct errors, to better document their audit work and therefore to contribute to the assurance process;

12. Asks the Commission to implement as soon as possible all outstanding Court's recommendations.

ANNEX: ENTITIES OR PERSONS FROM WHOM THE RAPPORTEUR HAS RECEIVED INPUT

The rapporteur declares under her exclusive responsibility that she did not receive input from any entity or person to be mentioned in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

11.1.2024

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

35

1

3

Members present for the final vote

João Albuquerque, Atidzhe Alieva-Veli, Dominique Bilde, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, Milan Brglez, Jordi Cañas, David Casa, Leila Chaibi, Ilan De Basso, Jarosław Duda, Estrella Durá Ferrandis, Lucia Ďuriš Nicholsonová, Cindy Franssen, Helmut Geuking, Elisabetta Gualmini, Agnes Jongerius, Radan Kanev, Ádám Kósa, Katrin Langensiepen, Elena Lizzi, Sara Matthieu, Jozef Mihál, Max Orville, Dennis Radtke, Antonio Maria Rinaldi, Mounir Satouri, Monica Semedo, Eugen Tomac, Romana Tomc, Nikolaj Villumsen, Maria Walsh

Substitutes present for the final vote

Catherine Amalric, Romeo Franz, Lina Gálvez Muñoz, José Gusmão

Substitutes under Rule 209(7) present for the final vote

Chiara Gemma, Maria Noichl, Carina Ohlsson, Vera Tax

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

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