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'Improvements needed in checks on data for member states’ budget contributions,' say EU auditors

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25896_ePolitix wide articleA report published today (10 December) by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) calls for the Commission to focus its checks on major components of Gross National Income (GNI) provided by member states and on those where there is a risk that the quality of data may be lower. The recommendations in the report would help ensure that the member states’ contributions to the EU budget are correctly calculated and fairly based. It would also improve the effectiveness of the Commission’s work. The Commission has accepted the need for action.

The EU budget is financed from own resources and other revenue, of which the revenue derived from member states’ GNI source has increased from around 50% of the budget in 2002 (€46 billion) to 70% in 2012 (€98bn).

GNI based own resources are the source of revenue balancing the EU budget. Any overstatement (or understatement) of GNI for a particular member state has the effect of decreasing (or increasing) the respective contributions from the other member states.

“One might expect that the Commission’s verification would ensure the quality of member states’ GNI data. However, the Court concludes that verification work was not sufficiently structured and focussed," said Milan Martin CVIKL, the ECA member responsible for the report. “Although we found cases of non-compliance and lack of quality in the audited verification cycle, the effectiveness of the Commission’s work in the next cycle after September 2015 is likely to be improved through the implementation of our recommendations.”

The audit examined the effectiveness of the Commission’s verification of GNI data in relation to the years 2002 to 2007 used for own resources, which became definitive in 2012. The audit criteria used for assessing the Commission’s performance are based on a set of good verification practices drawn up by the ECA taking into account the EU rules and relevant internal control principles.

The ECA concluded that the Commission did not plan and prioritise its work in an appropriate way, did not apply a consistent approach when carrying out its verifications in member states, and did not carry out sufficient work at nember state level. Moreover, the verifications were not adequately reported

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