Subject: European Court of Auditors: An overview of the assurance framework and the key factors contributing to errors in 2014-2020 cohesion spending
From: "Helga Berger" <[email-masked]>
To: "ECA-Austria" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2024 16:50:21 +0300

Tähelepanu! Tegemist on välisvõrgust saabunud kirjaga.
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Dear colleagues,

Yesterday the European Parliament’s CONT-Committee discussed the European 
Court of Auditors’ review on the Regularity of Cohesion spending during the 
2014-2020 period <https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/publications/RV-2024-03> 
(Review 03/2024) which was published in July 2024.

This review provides a multiannual overview on the legality and regularity 
of cohesion spending and its assurance framework. It collates European Court 
of Auditors’ findings related to the effectiveness of the management and 
control systems, root causes of error and the measures in place for the 
Commission to prevent or detect and correct errors over the period. Where 
possible, we also provide country-specific information. Finally, we also 
looked into some challenges that may shape the period leading up to the 
final closure of programmes.

With this review, we aim to contribute to further strengthening the 
assurance model and to provide insights for the preparation of the 
legislative proposal for cohesion policy in the post-2027 period.

Our main conclusion, based on our previous audit work carried out between 
2017 to 2022 on the 2014‑2020 period and publicly available information, is, 
that the assurance framework for cohesion policy has helped reduce the 
overall error level since 2007, but it has not been effective in bringing it 
below the required 2 % materiality threshold. Cohesion has suffered from 
consistently higher error rates than other budget areas because spending 
checks are not robust enough Still, the level of error is above materiality, 
both annually and from a multiannual perspective. And we see room for all 
key actors – the member states and the Commission – to work hand in hand in 
improving the way they implement the assurance model.

We invite you to visit our website and to have a look at the report, which 
contains interesting details on our audit work: 
<https://www.eca.europa.eu/ECAPublications/RV-2024-03/RV-2024-03_EN.pdf> 
https://www.eca.europa.eu/ECAPublications/RV-2024-03/RV-2024-03_EN.pdf

For those who want to get a quick overview, I am including a summary of the 
main messages.

If you have any questions about this review, please don’t hesitate to 
contact us.

Best regards,
Helga Berger

Reporting Member

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