IP/09/1688 Brussels, 10 November 2009 Statement by Paweł Samecki, Commissioner for Regional Policy, on the European Court of Auditors’ annual report I am very pleased to see that today’s report by the European Court of Auditors on the 2008 accounts shows that we are achieving positive results and moving in the right direction. Click here for broadcast version of the statement (only in EN) The Commission is working hard to help national authorities to reduce the error rate in projects co-financed by the European Union. Our joint efforts are bearing fruit, but of course we can do more and we will do more. Our approach is stringent, but it is also fair and balanced. The European Commission launched a 37-point action plan last year, aimed at bringing down the error rate in the medium-term. Our plan, which we have continued to implement in 2009, has a two-fold strategy: To help national authorities to do a better job of checking the eligibility of project expenditure before they submit payment claims to the European Commission; and To take tougher and speedier measures to halt payments or claw back money if Member States fall below standards. We have a shared responsibility to manage the Structural and Cohesion Funds, to ensure that the financial controls in place in the Member States are effective and that we recover any funds which have been wrongly claimed. In other words, our action plan is about protecting EU taxpayers' money. So far this year, we have clawed back €629 million in incorrectly claimed payments. We estimate that we will recover another half a billion euro by the end of 2009. This is on top of the €1.5 billion in corrections we made in 2008. These claw backs, or financial corrections as they are known, show that the Commission is committed to tackling serious errors. Today's report by the European Court of Auditors estimates that 11% of the funds we transferred to Member States for cohesion policy projects should not have been claimed or paid. This error rate is too high. But don't be misled into thinking that an error rate of 11% means we can't account for 11% of the EU cohesion budget or that the money has disappeared down a black hole. In all cases where there are errors resulting in incorrect payments, the Commission takes action to recover the funds - even if this can take time. Of course we all want to see the error rate come down as quickly as possible. I am confident that it will once the measures we are implementing take full effect. But the errors need to be seen in a proper context. It's important that we do not lose sight of the big picture. The money we invest through the EU cohesion policy makes a positive difference to people's lives, a difference which has, if anything, been magnified by the economic and financial crisis. The money goes where it is needed most - in the real economy. The EU's cohesion policy has helped to create around 600,000 jobs since the year 2000; it transforms regional and national economies, by investing in infrastructure modernisation, in environmental improvements, in small businesses and in people's skills. Since 2000, the policy has co-financed over 100,000 kilometres of new or redeveloped roads and motorways, 4,000 kilometres of new railway track, and modernised 130 ports and over 30 airports. This investment contributes to making Europe more competitive in the global marketplace and delivering long-term sustainable growth. The funding rules we have in place are sensible and proportionate. They strike the right balance between having the best possible controls and ensuring that we can deliver value for money in terms of the benefits obtained. It's true that some of the problems we encounter are the result of rules that are not correctly understood or applied. That's why we continue to focus on simplifying the regulations and reducing red-tape. We estimate that these simplifications have helped to reduce the administrative burden for beneficiaries by more than 20% since 2007. We have, for instance, recently amended our rules to allow the use of flat-rate payments and lump sums, and we will not stop there. Finally, I would like to address a common misconception: the word error does not mean fraud. When the Court and the Commission’s auditors talk about errors, they mean non-compliance with the conditions for receiving EU funding. Fraud goes well beyond non-compliance; it means deliberate or criminal deception. According to OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, suspected frauds affected less than 0.2% of all cohesion policy payments made by the Commission in the years from 2000-2008. To put it another way: 99.8% of the money paid out of the EU budget under the cohesion policy has been free of fraud. The EU's money is your money and you can count on the European Commission to do its utmost to ensure that every last euro is safeguarded and used properly. Thank you.