On discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the EU – Commission for the financial year 2024

OPINION

The Committee on Foreign Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following into its motion for a resolution:

1. Notes that the current audit year is marked by continued geopolitical instability and global challenges; recalls that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU has provided economic, humanitarian and military support to Ukraine worth over €177 billion; highlights the importance of the €50 billion Ukraine Facility adopted in 2024 and calls on the Commission to ensure the transparent, timely and efficient implementation of the Facility, supported by strengthened monitoring, auditing and reporting mechanisms to guarantee proper use of funds, underlining the need to improve procurement efficiency; underlines, however, that the measures taken must be accelerated given the gravity of the situation and urgently expedite both military and reconstruction aid to Ukraine; emphasises the importance of increased EU financial support to Republic of Moldova in order to bolster its resilience and counteract destabilising actors; calls on the Commission to ensure that such support is accompanied by robust risk-management, strict conditionality and regular reporting, particularly in the fields of resilience, energy security, public administration reform and strategic communication;

2. Underlines the essential role of the EU's external policies under heading 6 (Neighbourhood and the World) in upholding and promoting EU values, democracy, equality, security and stability amid Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine and other global challenges; emphasises the need for reinforced and robust rule of law and merit-based conditionality in pre-accession assistance and NDICI-Global Europe firmly placing democratic fundamentals at the centre of the EU's approach linking disbursements to tangible progress on rule of law, judiciary reforms, media freedom and alignment with EU foreign and security policy; stresses that the principle of “more for more and less for less” must be consistently applied to ensure credibility and effectiveness; stresses that backsliding must trigger immediate reprogramming towards civil society and democratic local pro-reform stakeholders; welcomes, in this perspective, the Commission’s decision to pause the adoption of the draft implementing decision concerning Tanzania and calls on the Commission to withdraw its draft implementing decision and to submit a new draft that respects the concerns raised, while ensuring that any new changes do not adversely affect funding directed to support NGOs and civil society; highlights the importance of the €6 billion Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans, adopted in 2024; calls for the access and funding of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to be reinstated in full, with strong oversight and accountability to help the humanitarian situation in Palestine and across the region while insisting on the continuation of transparency and compliance mechanisms for all EU funded implementing partners; welcomes UNRWA’s fulfilment of all conditions set by the Commission for continued funding in 2024 and the recent Commission’s assessment that the Agency remains fully committed to implementing the recommendations of the ‘Colonna report;

3. Stresses that EU financial assistance to Georgia must strictly follow NDICI-Global Europe conditionality; calls for the continued suspension of all financial bilateral assistance directly benefiting Georgian authorities until further notice, and simultaneous increase in funding for Georgian civil society and independent media; calls for increased support to independent civil society where state-level conditions are not met;

4. Calls for closer examination of China’s and Russia’s influence in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe, noting the importance of understanding how these external actors shape developments on the ground; calls on the Commission to integrate these risks into its financial programming, fraud risk assessments and project-level due-diligence.

5. Calls on the Commission to increase rapid-response funding for human rights defenders, independent journalists, women’s rights NGOs and democratic activists in partner countries, ensuring flexible, low-bureaucracy access to support where government-level conditionality cannot be met.

6. Calls on the Commission to ensure that external funding dedicated to addressing the root causes of irregular migration and improving border management fully in line with international law delivers measurable results and adheres to strict performance indicators; calls for stronger oversight of EU-funded anti-smuggling, return cooperation and capacity-building programmes, ensuring efficient use of resources and full respect for human rights.

7. Calls on the Commission to ensure rigorous financial oversight in the implementation of EU defence-related instruments, including EDIRPA and EDIP, by improving procurement transparency, strengthening audit trails and facilitating reporting to Parliament on budget execution and performance.

8. Notes the 4.9% material error rate under heading 6 in 2024, mainly linked to ineligible costs and procurement issues; welcomes the Commission's effective controls over the clearance of pre-financing paid to international organisations; calls for the prompt implementation of the ECA's recommendations, including the elimination of ambiguity in contract conditions and beneficiary guidelines, as well as ensuring compliance with contractual limits on indirect costs;

9. Encourages the Commission to increase transparency by publishing accessible dashboards tracking high-value external action contracts, performance indicators, and the status of ECA recommendations;

10. Calls on the Commission to deepen cooperation with OLAF and EPPO in external financing and to systematically inform Parliament on cases where EU external funds may have been misused;

11. Reiterates that Global Gateway should contribute to global stability and security, enhancing democracy and rule of law, while strengthening Europe's resilience; stresses, further, that to align political commitment and geopolitical ambitions as well as to ensure high levels of transparency, sustainability and accountability, expanded cooperation with like-minded partners, including countries in Latin America and through well-defined private sector engagement, and a renewed commitment to timely delivery is needed; calls on the Commission to involve civil society organisations more systematically in Global Gateway initiatives; calls on the Commission to accelerate the realisation of projects and to streamline the amount of flagship projects with the aim of maximising the impact of the initiative;

12. Calls on the Commission to reinforce financial due-diligence and procurement safeguards under Global Gateway to prevent EU-funded infrastructure projects from creating or deepening strategic dependencies on China; stresses the need for transparent procurement, risk mitigation and consistent application of EU standards.

ANNEX: DECLARATION OF INPUT

Pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure, the rapporteur for opinion declares that he included in his opinion input on matters pertaining to the subject of the file that he received, in the preparation of the opinion, prior to the adoption thereof in committee, from the following interest representatives falling within the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register, or from the following representatives of public authorities of third countries, including their diplomatic missions and embassies:

The list above is drawn up under the exclusive responsibility of the rapporteur for opinion.

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INFORMATION ON ADOPTION BY THE COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION