The Spanish system of control and surveillance of European funds continues to generate certain community institutions. Concretely, the Court of Auditors of the European Union warned this Thursday that the system used by Spain to carry out a Review of Next Generation funding allocations continues to be deficient.
EU auditors consider that “the information system does not contain complete information on the progress of milestones or unmet goals or on the headlines real, sources of EU funding and amounts paid”. They specify this in a report on the execution of community funds during the year 2023 and underline a warning that they had already detected in their 2022 report.
This was confirmed by the Spanish member of the Court of Auditors of the EU, Alejandro Blanco, who indicated that “the deficiencies observed in 2022 still persist.” The auditors then referred to a concern shared by the European Commission. They considered that this measure, which was part of the steps and objectives that Spain had to achieve from the first disbursement of funds to exit the pandemic, was incomplete and, therefore, did not have an audit system allowing missions to be controlled. .
Blanco emphasizes that the government is “solving the problem” but this does not mean that the deficiencies detected “persist”. The Court of Auditors emphasizes that this information on the final beneficiaries of the funds has been integrated “progressively”, but that it is not yet “complete”.
The warnings from the European Commission date back to 2021. A concern which was therefore reflected by the Court of Auditors in its 2022 report, finally gave the community executive. its approval of the Spanish funds control system in the context of the third payment Next Generation funds. The Ministry of Finance sent a message of calm to Europe with the establishment of the Café system which, it defended, would allow complete traceability of projects associated with community funds at national, regional or local level.
But Spain is not the only country to face criticism in this regard. The auditors, who recognize that it is the country that receives the most funds from the recovery plan, also warn that the control and surveillance system put in place by France is not interconnected with other IT systems, which “presents a risk to data quality”.
In the case of Croatia, the inefficiencies reflect a control system that cannot provide call data proposals that were awarded before its launch.
Additionally, Blanco refers to “Qualitative errors” in the design of the recovery plan for 2023. It highlights the lack of precision in defining the measures by which Brussels then assesses whether compliance has been achieved. Although all this does not imply any “fraud or irregularity”.
As an example of this lack of specificity, the auditors cite a measure which required amending the law on low-voltage electrotechnical regulation to install charging stations for electric vehicles in car parks. The report highlights that the scope of this obligation was not detailed, i.e. the number or percentage of charging stations that had to be installed. Which, after all, allowed taking refuge in such a lack of precision to avoid setting ambitious goals to its realization.
