As part of its financial reporting package, the Commission publishes its annual management and performance report (AMPR), by means of which the college of commissioners also takes political responsibility for management of the EU budget. This high-level performance report, which describes EU budget management and the performance of EU programmes and policies, is crucial for the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, which hold the Commission to account for implementing the EU budget through the annual discharge procedure that is currently ongoing.
The EU budget is a key vehicle for delivering on the EU’s goals, and the EU’s oversight bodies must have reliable information at hand,” said Jorg Kristijan Petrovič, the ECA member in charge of the review. “Although the Commission’s procedures for its high-level reporting remain good overall, we still see scope for improving the quality of performance data, while its reporting on budgetary performance is frequently more positive than ours.”
The auditors note that over a third of their thematic performance audit reports in 2022 asked the Commission to do better in terms of data collection, monitoring, and performance reporting. As regards the EU’s 2022 budget spending of €196 billion, in October 2023 the auditors reported many more payment errors than the Commission (4.2 % vs 1.9 %). The biggest difference was in the area of cohesion spending, which totalled €79 billion or 40 % of the EU budget, where the auditors reported a 6.4 % error rate, while the Commission’s maximum estimate was 2.6 %. Furthermore, for the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) – the EU’s €723 billion COVID‑19 recovery fund – the auditors found issues with a number of milestones and targets which help to keep the fund in check, while the Commission reported that all had been satisfactorily fulfilled for payments made in 2022. In addition, last year the auditors found that the Commission overstated the contribution by the common agricultural policy (CAP) to climate spending by €9 billion, which is still relevant for this AMPR, as an updated tracking methodology for the new CAP applies only from 2023.
The auditors did not identify any other inconsistencies when reviewing the main financial claims in the Commission’s report. However, although the report refers to the sharp rise in interest rates and inflation which put the EU budget under pressure (as the auditors also reported in their annual report on the 2022 EU budget), the report itself fails to mention the outstanding EU budget commitments, which the auditors say reached a record high of €453 billion. The auditors nevertheless acknowledge that the Commission addresses outstanding commitments in its long-term forecasts.
Background information
The auditors analysed how the Commission prepared the 2022 AMPR, including related checks, and how it reported on performance-related issues. They focused on Volume I of the AMPR, which sets out the key facts and achievements in relation to budgetary management and protection of the EU budget, and reports on EU funding for Ukraine, the RRF, and sound financial management.Review 06/2023 “The Commission’s 2022 annual management and performance report for the EU budget” is available on the ECA website. This is not an audit report, but a review based on the ECA’s previous audit work in this area. It also uses publicly available information and material specifically collected for this purpose. This review complements the ECA’s annual report on the 2022 EU budget, which was published on 5 October 2023.
