Luke Ming Flanagan: EU funding risks repeat of RFF failures
Luke Ming Flanagan (MEP) responds to the European Court of Auditors report, warning that lessons from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RFF) remain unaddressed and that proposed simplification risks removing accountability for EU funds. He argues the Court's factual findings show gaps in data collection, impact indicators and the environmental claims attached to new funding rules.
Main findings: The speech highlights the European Court of Auditors' negative assessment and underlines that the auditors have no political axe to grind. Flanagan stresses that the report confirms widespread concerns and that lessons from the 730 billion pound RFF were not learned.
Accountability concerns: Flanagan warns that proposed simplification could mean "give me the money and go away"-reducing checks and increasing scepticism across the European Union. He urges that simplification should not come at the cost of transparency and accountability for how EU money is spent.
Data and impact measurement: The MEP points to specific weaknesses identified by the Court of Auditors: no provision for collecting information, no defined impact indicators, and statements that overstate environmental benefits. He compares this to past CAP regulation claims that were labelled environmental but were not strictly so.
Consequences and role: Flanagan calls for improvement and oversight, saying the Parliament's role is to fix these flaws. He stresses that problems will not be solved by ignoring facts or by political spin; instead, the findings require corrective action to protect public money and the EU's credibility.
Main findings: The speech highlights the European Court of Auditors' negative assessment and underlines that the auditors have no political axe to grind. Flanagan stresses that the report confirms widespread concerns and that lessons from the 730 billion pound RFF were not learned.
Accountability concerns: Flanagan warns that proposed simplification could mean "give me the money and go away"-reducing checks and increasing scepticism across the European Union. He urges that simplification should not come at the cost of transparency and accountability for how EU money is spent.
Data and impact measurement: The MEP points to specific weaknesses identified by the Court of Auditors: no provision for collecting information, no defined impact indicators, and statements that overstate environmental benefits. He compares this to past CAP regulation claims that were labelled environmental but were not strictly so.
Consequences and role: Flanagan calls for improvement and oversight, saying the Parliament's role is to fix these flaws. He stresses that problems will not be solved by ignoring facts or by political spin; instead, the findings require corrective action to protect public money and the EU's credibility.
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Transcript
Thanks you very much to the European Court of Auditors and it's, all I can say is without the European Court of Auditors an awful lot of this information wouldn't get out there. As the last speaker said, this confirms an awful lot of what people were saying and people were thinking. When you see a report like this and you hear the amount of negatives that the Court of Auditors come out with and I've said it before and I'll say it again, they don't have a political axe to grind, not unless there's something we don't know about and they definitely don't. They're basing it on the facts and their facts are that, well I think the biggest thing that stands out is lessons learned from the RFF not addressed and we're talking about lessons learned from a fund that was £730 billion. I've spoken to people in the Court of Auditors about it, I've spoken to a lot of people about this and as far as they're concerned we are heading down the same road again with no real accountability for people's money. It will add to scepticism within the European Union and without doubt I think we will achieve simplification with this, but simplification at what cost? We've often joked in my office that the ideal simplification seems to be give me the money and go away and don't ask any questions and we're slowly but surely heading there and that simplification isn't going to deliver on a common cause which is what we're meant to do. It's called the European Union for a reason, not to create a situation where we all run in different directions and no one knows where the money is spent and there's no credibility for how the money is spent and for me that's really, really worried. To hear things like no provision for the collection of information, no impact indicators defined and then this overstatement on what it's going to do for the environment. We had something similar with areas of natural constraint in the cap regulation the last time claiming more of it was for the environment than actually was because it actually strictly speaking wasn't for the environment, but there's one thing for sure, we won't solve our problems by lying to ourselves, we won't solve our problems by closing our eyes and that's what, well look you can see people are being political saying this, it's in black and white, it's there in what the European Court of Auditors have said, I hope we can improve it, that's our role. Thank you.