What changed

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on EmploymentCivil Liberties, Justice and SocialHome Affairs 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. Notes that the Court of Auditors (the ‘Court’) audited spending areas comprising various policies related to migration and border management (heading 4) and security and defence (heading 5);

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

2. Notes that for the audited spending areas related to migration and border management, security and defence policies, the Court examined a sample of 23 transactions, under MFF headings 4 and 5; notes the Court’s explanation that the audit scope was not designed to be representative for these headings, but nevertheless contributed to their statement of assurance; reiterates the call from the Parliament to carry out the audit in a way that would allow calculating the estimated level of error;

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, according to the Commission, after a further increase to some €460 billion in 2023, the outstanding commitments should decrease during 2024 to 2027 to €314 billion;

3. Notes with concern that 11 out of the 23 transactions examined by the Court contained quantifiable errors which had a financial impact on the amounts charged to the Union budget; highlights that such cases may have negative reputational impact;

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 %);

4. Notes that Member States stepped up implementation of their national programmes in 2022; is concerned that significant amounts remain undisbursed for both Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) (26 %) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF) (33 %), meanwhile acknowledges that funding for 2014-2020 has to be spent by June 2024; urges the Commission to step up its efforts towards assisting Member States in the effective implementation of their respective national programmes;

3. 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 assisting Member States and regions to harness new opportunities and address challenges, such as globalisation, unemployment, industrial change, digitalisation and supporting up and re-skilling and lifelong learning;

5. Notes that the Commission did not use its full prerogatives, as guardian of the treaties, to make sure Romania and Bulgaria are accepted into Schengen, despite the fact that both countries are meeting since 2011 all the conditions to be fully members of the Schengen area;

4. Is greatly worried that the overall level of error was material at 4.2 %, compared to 3.0 % in 2021; and 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;

6. Regrets practice of the Commission in providing an often only very limited amount of information on the implementation of EU legislation to Parliament; calls on the Commission to be more proactive in publishing such statistics in order to prove that policies are necessary and proportionate to achieving their objective;

5. 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;

7. Notes the prompt actions by DG HOME following the Russian aggression, especially the timely drafting of a decision on the activation of the Temporary Protection Directive for the first time;

6. 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. Notes that the number of undocumented arrivals at the external borders keeps rising compared to previous year; notes the actions by DG HOME on the one hand to create partnerships against human trafficking networks, to support Member States in carrying out relocations and other transfer mechanisms, in improving quick and efficient asylum and return procedures, like those related to EU visa policy and bilateral cooperation, and on the other hand actions to promote integration policies for legally residing non-EU nationals; calls on the Commission to continue working towards a strategy for more effective returns in full compliance with the Charter of Fundamental rights and human rights of those arriving to the EU; further calls on the Commission to continue extending its external cooperation on migration and asylum with due regard of Article 218 TFEU, as well as promote integration policies for legally residing non-EU nationals, with support from the AMIF;

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

9. Urges the Commission to increase transparency and accountabililty of the programming and implementation of Home Affairs funds in third countries, and NDICI funding, such as in countries like Tunisia and Libya; calls the Commission to generate a publicly available overview of all migration related spending in third countries, and urges for ex ante human rights impact assesments for migration related spending in third countries, and to share these assesments with the Parliament where required by rules;

8. 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;

10. Acknowledges the continuing support of DG JUST to the Commission’s policy on upholding the rule of law in the Union, especially and the yearly edition of the Justice Scoreboard and the third Annual Rule of Law Report, which contained recommendations to the Member States for the first time; encourages the Commission to closely monitor the effective follow up of reccommendations provided to the Member States concerned, and to take action in case adequate measures to address existing concerns are not adopted at the national level;

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

11. Notes with concern the European Ombudsman's Special Report concerning the time the Commission takes to deal with requests for public access to documents, which outlined that in 85% of the cases the Commission does not deal with confirmatory applications within the legal time limits; calls on the Commission to urgently address this matter and comply with Regulation 1049/2001 on public access to documents, a key precondition for transparency and public trust in the Commission; recalls that in 2022, the Ombudsman urged the Commission to treat access to document requests concerning EU recovery funds with greater consistency and to better explain its reasoning if it decides not release the asked-for information and that the Ombudsman opened an inquiry on the Commission’s refusal to give public access to documents related to its proposal for a Regulation on the European Health Data Space;

12. Strongly regrets the Commission’s lack of enforcement measures and legislative follow-up to Parliament’s recommendation, including on recommendation of 15 June 2023 to the Council and the Commission following the investigation of alleged contraventions and maladministration in the application of Union law in relation to the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware; calls on the Commission to respect the principle of sincere cooperation between Union institutions, and to comply with the obligations set out in the Framework Agreement and the Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making;

13. Is strongly concerned about the revelations on conflicts of interests involving high level Commission’s officials and the use of X advertising campaign related to the Child Sexual Abuse regulation; calls on the Commission to publish all documents requested by the Parliament and make full transparency on this case;

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

23.1.2024

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

42

13

1

Members present for the final vote

Magdalena Adamowicz, Abir Al-Sahlani, Katarina Barley, Pietro Bartolo, Theresa Bielowski, Patrick Breyer, Saskia Bricmont, Jorge Buxadé Villalba, Damien Carême, Patricia Chagnon, Lena Düpont, Lucia Ďuriš Nicholsonová, Cornelia Ernst, Nicolaus Fest, Maria Grapini, Sylvie Guillaume, Andrzej Halicki, Evin Incir, Sophia in ‘t Veld, Patryk Jaki, Marina Kaljurand, Assita Kanko, Łukasz Kohut, Moritz Körner, Alice Kuhnke, Jeroen Lenaers, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, Erik Marquardt, Javier Moreno Sánchez, Maite Pagazaurtundúa, Diana Riba i Giner, Isabel Santos, Birgit Sippel, Vincenzo Sofo, Tineke Strik, Jana Toom, Milan Uhrík, Tom Vandendriessche, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi, Elena Yoncheva, Javier Zarzalejos

Substitutes present for the final vote

Cyrus Engerer, José Gusmão, Beata Kempa, Leopoldo López Gil, Janina Ochojska, Anne-Sophie Pelletier, Bergur Løkke Rasmussen, Róża Thun und Hohenstein, Maria Walsh, Tomáš Zdechovský

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

Andrus Ansip, Hildegard Bentele, Maria da Graça Carvalho, Marisa Matias, Caroline Nagtegaal

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

The rapporteur declares under his exclusive responsibility that he 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.

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

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