Special Report No 12/2013: Can the Commission and Member States show that the EU budget allocated to the rural development policy is well spent?

Abstract:

For the 2007–13 programming period, the EU has allocated almost 100 billion euro to achieve its rural development objectives. In this report, the Court finds that there is a lack of assurance that the money has been well spent: the Commission and Member States have not sufficiently accounted for their performance in achieving value for money with the EU’s budget.

Despite support from the Commission, Member States’ monitoring and evaluation has not been reliable, consistent and relevant enough to show what has been achieved in relation to the policy objectives. The available information has not been used to make the rural development measures more effective and efficient, with the focus being on spending the budget rather than efficiently achieving results.

Ultimately, the current framework has failed to provide the information needed in time to inform decisions on the most effective and efficient measures for the 2014–20 programming period.

ECA: Special Report No 12/2013: “Can the Commission and Member States show that the EU budget allocated to the rural development policy is well spent?” [PDF] http://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/SR13_12/SR13_12_EN.pdf

ECA: Press Release, 22.11.13: “The Member States and Commission have not done enough to show that the €100 billion rural development budget is well spent”, say EU Auditors http://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/INSR13_12/INSR13_12_EN.pdf

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