Brussels -Irregularities and changes to project timelines to “make the numbers add up”, thereby concealing poorly planned measures financed by Recovery Fund resources: Member States are alleged to have adjusted their stated intervention and reform targets to finance their National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) and conceal foreseeable failures. This is the allegation in the EU Court of Auditors’ special report on the implementation of the budget in 2025. A comprehensive document states that “Several CIDs (Council Implementing Decisions, ed.) were modified after submitting the payment request to fit
actual achievements.”
In practice, national governments altered the action plan for reforms and measures designed to access resources from the Recovery Fund, which finances the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs), as the process unfolded. The Court of Auditors examined whether the Commission had assessed the changes on the basis of sufficient evidence to support the justification provided by the Member States. The answer is “no”. “The objective circumstances were not always sufficiently explained and often not supported by appropriate evidence.”
Two examples are used to illustrate the desire to make the numbers add up, with Ireland and Sweden specifically named in separate boxes; however, the EU Court of Auditors has scrutinised the amendments made by Ireland, Greece, Spain, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia. The governments of these countries are under scrutiny, as well as the European Commission, which allegedly looked the other way.
https://www.eunews.it/2022/08/18/elezioni-italia-emissione-debito-comune-europeo-strumento-ue/
For 13 targets and objectives analysed (relating to 13 of the 32 amendments in total), the Court found that the requirements of the Council’s implementing decision for those targets and objectives had been amended after the Member States had submitted their respective payment request to the Commission. In nine cases, the request to amend the implementing decision was submitted only after the payment request was made. The Council’s decisions “were adopted during the
preliminary assessment of satisfactory fulfilment and aligned with actual achieved
outputs, which made the payment possible.”
These Practices were designed to mask measures that would otherwise be rejected, thereby failing to mobilise funds that could ensure the effective functioning of the post-pandemic recovery mechanism and its success, which is essential for envisaging similar schemes in the future.. According to the EU Court of Auditors, “the practice of amending the requirements of the milestones and targets subject to payment reduces the effectiveness of the EU’s financial leverage and sends the message that the unsatisfactory fulfilment can be avoided by amending a CID to unlock the payment.”
Some amendments have “removed important implementation stages” from the Recovery Fund measure, the Luxembourg auditors further report. There are five instances of “amendments that removed either fully or partially the
part of the measure related to the implementation stage.” This was done, for example, by replacing the concrete delivery of outputs with preparatory steps. With the revised targets and objectives, payments are linked to resources or processes, leaving the substantive outputs outside the RRF’s implementation period. These cases demonstrate that “certain CID amendments went beyond adjusting timelines or technical specifications
and instead removed – fully or partially – outputs that initially constituted key elements
for the completion of measures.“
