Работни групи

That is why, in May 2018 the Commission presented its proposal concerning investigations conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) as regards cooperation with the European Public Prosecutor's Office and the effectiveness of OLAF investigations. At the same time, CONT, when reviewing the Commission proposal, may look into the possibility to improve other weaknesses in the current OLAF Regulation. With the view to obtaining a comprehensive picture CONT has decided to organise another OLAF workshop. The workshop will bring together well known academics in criminal law as well as officials from the European Court of Justice and OLAF for a discussion on the future functioning of OLAF.

The workshop discussed the question of how the discharge of the EU budget can be better communicated. There is an obvious mismatch between the overall positive and successful financial management of the EU and its bad image created through the few cases of fraud, mismanagement or errors. Is it possible to improve communication on the side of the institutions (Parliament, Commission, Court of Auditors) with the effect that media and citizens get a more balanced and reality-based picture of the EU's budget?

Can the gap between institutional communication and media's and citizens' perception be bridged? What might be the impact for communication resulting from the move towards more performance audit? Experts from institutions and media, academia and international organisations have were invited to present their views and to discuss them with the CONT Members.

Rapporteur: Derek Vaughan

SES in its current form includes regulatory instruments to minimize the negative effects of fragmented ATM services in Europe. SES regulatory framework also provides for financial support to the coordinated development of new ATM technologies to increase the capacity of the European ATM system. The SESAR project, which is the SES's technological pillar, has successfully promoted coordination and is gradually releasing technological improvements. However, it has fallen behind its initial schedule and has become significantly more costly than anticipated.

The workshop would focus on the cost-efficiency of the EU funding allocated to ATM harmonization and technological development. The discussions will be held between the European Court of Auditors, the European Commission, Eurocontrol, the coordinating Joint Undertaking (SESAR), EASA, and most relevant stakeholders.

Since April 2015, the European Commission has organised 8 workshops on effective asset disclosure, whistle-blower protection, healthcare corruption, local public procurement, private sector corruption, political immunities, anti-corruption indicators and economic impact of corruption. Firstly, the workshop will focus on the most important subjects and assess the outcome of the Commission workshops. It will also try to know what impact did they have on improving effectiveness of competent national authorities in fighting corruption? How should the European Commission encourage Member States to fight against corruption?

The main part of the workshop will be devoted to the question what are the EU and Member States doing to tackle corruption and what are the key best practices to share at EU level?

The EU budget contributes to the fight of this phenomenon, both via the financing of its internal policies, as well as in the framework of the neighbourhood cooperation with Russia and Belarus.

Two years after the Court of Auditors' Special report " Combating eutrophication in the Baltic Sea: further and more effective action needed", CONT will debate with experts on the present situation and verify whether the financial support of the EU budget, as well as the Commission's and the Member States' activities have brought any improvement in this field.

European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI), European Structural Investment Funds (ESIF) & Financial Instruments are at the forefront to boost investments in the EU. However, what are the links between these instruments? Are they complementary? How they blend together? Key experts from the European Investment Bank, academic and managing authorities will enlighten the current situation and address all these concerns.

Audit work has changed over the years. Compliance audits look principally at the legality and regularity of payments, but they say nothing about whether the political and economic objectives were achieved. A bridge in the middle of nowhere may have been built in respect of public procurement rules and contract obligations. These compliance audits are increasingly supplemented by performance audits, in which you try to answer the question whether the objective was achieved in an economic, effective and efficient manner. In spite of the growing complexity of the audit process the administrative burden for beneficiaries should remain reasonable. The key question is: How do we strike the right balance between providing easy access to European public funds for beneficiaries, while guaranteeing sound financial management. One element which has to be put in place for this purpose is a single audit chain, where one level build on the work of the other.

The workshop will focus on the following issues: the origins of the observed delays in the launching of the new operational programmes and project (2014-2020), the impact of the backlog of previous periods and what are the difficulties in implementing the ex-ante conditions, the links between these conditions and the CPR's new performance approach, the links between the contribution of European funds and the European semester and the necessity or not to combine EFSI and ESIF.

The objective of the workshop is to get the feedback from the main stakeholders (managing authorities, national beneficiaries and the European Commission) on this short period of application of the CPR In order to detect difficulties and propose adequate remedies.

Different perceptions of the institutional role of the Council and of the Parliament in the discharge exercise, and the Council's lack of cooperation with Parliament by refusing to reply to the questionnaire sent annually in the frame of the discharge, led the Parliament to refuse granting discharge to the Secretary General of the Council in relation to the financial years 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Given the importance of cooperation between the two institutions and responsibility before the EU citizens, the Parliament stresses an urgent need for better dialogue. The Parliament as a discharge authority is looking for ways to solve the institutional conflict and to move forward in the process of granting discharge to the Council. The workshop should discuss ways to solve the institutional conflict by strengthening the Parliament's role as the discharge authority.

It is therefore to be expected that the Commission will present a proposal for an amending regulation within the coming months. The objective of the workshop is to gather feedback from stakeholders on how the OLAF regulation is currently being applied and what progress may be needed to prepare for the future. The workshop's four panels will discuss the future cooperation between OLAF and the European Public Sector Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), OLAF investigations and the rights of persons concerned, the follow up of OLAF recommendations, and the lessons learnt from OLAF cases.