Member states blamed as EU accounts fail audit again

Political pressure is growing for European Union (EU) member states to release more information about how they spend EU-funded grants and subsidies from the €110 billion EU budget. In a long-awaited ‘European Transparency Initiative’, EU anti-fraud Commissioner Siim Kallas has proposed discussions with national governments about “a legal obligation to publish information about projects and end beneficiaries of funds under shared management” between member states and Brussels. Transparency is crucial given that 80% of EU spending, such as agricultural programmes and regional aid, is managed this way. In a speech to the Centre of European Policy Studies, Brussels, Kallas said information on recipients was published only by Denmark, Estonia, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Slovenia and some Spanish regions. The call comes as the European Court of Auditors - the EU’s financial watchdog - refused for the eleventh year running to give a positive ‘statement of assurance’ on EU annual accounts (for 2004). The key reason cited, again, was the failure of national governments to supply adequate data on their administration of EU ‘shared management’ spending programmes. This was despite the introduction of an ‘integrated administration and control system’ run by Brussels and national governments, covering 59% of farm spending “limiting the risk of irregular expenditure to an acceptable level, where properly applied”. But this system does not cover national government post-payment checks on EU Common Agricultural Policy subsidies, meaning that for 37% of farm spending there is no “assurance that transactions comply with EU legislation”. The same applied for regional aid ‘structural funds’, where the court “identified failures in the member states’ checks, including failure to perform document checks, failure to check eligibility criteria for expenditure and failure to verify proof of delivery of the services co-financed”.