Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament. Protection of the European Union budget to end 2012

This Communication on the protection of the European Union Budget has been requested by the European Parliament in the context of the 2011 discharge procedure and is therefore addressed to this institution, as well as to the Council and the European Court of Auditors (ECA). It should be read in conjunction with the figures disclosed in Note 6 of the 2012 EU annual accounts.

The objective of this Communication is to provide:
(1) an overview of the mechanisms foreseen in the legislation which define the process of identifying and then dealing with administrative errors, irregularities and suspected fraud detected by EU bodies and by Member States; and
(2) a best estimate of the total amounts concerned for 2012 and cumulative so as to illustrate in real terms how:
a. the EU budget is protected from expenditure incurred in breach of law, and
b. the Member States are involved and impacted.

In addition to the above, information is also provided on amounts recovered relating to advances (pre-financing) paid out that have not been used by the beneficiary. Furthermore, information is given on the additional corrections reported as effected by Member States under Cohesion policy following their own controls and audits, for the programming period 2007-2013.

More detailed information on the stages and forms of preventive and corrective measures, as well as the financial impact on the EU and/or national budgets, under the different policy areas and implementation methods, is given in the Commission Staff Working Document ("SWD") accompanying this Communication.

The figures presented in this Communication demonstrate that the result of the multi-annual preventive and corrective activities undertaken by the Commission is that the EU budget is adequately protected from expenditure incurred in breach of applicable law.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)682: Follow the progress of this communication through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:682:FIN

EUR-Lex: SWD(2013)404: EU preventive and corrective activities to end 2012 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2013:404:FIN

ESO: Background information: Fighting fraud: Annual report underlines need for strong measures to protect EU budget http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-fighting-fraud-annual-report-underlines-need-for-strong-measures-to-protect-eu-budget/

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