Performance check for EU programmes: mixed results, while information quality should be further improved

Source: European Court of Auditors i, published on Friday, November 13 2020.

The European Commission’s reporting on how well the EU i spending programmes perform shows mixed results, according to a new report published today by the European Court of Auditors i (ECA). While the auditors welcome the fact that the reporting keeps improving and is becoming more balanced, they also point to a number of problems: the quality of the Commission’s performance assessments still varies across programmes, and setting robust and informative performance indicators remains a challenge. They also say that the Commission should work with Member States to further ramp up data reliability in its reporting on budget performance.

The auditors examined whether the Commission has a robust process for high-level yearly reporting on the performance of EU policies and spending programmes and on whether they achieve their objectives effectively, efficiently and economically. “The citizens want to know whether EU programmes deliver results and value for money,” said Jan Gregor, the ECA Member responsible for the report. “The Commission has good procedures for preparing high-level performance reports and presents more balanced and clearer assessments than in the past. However, it does not clearly indicate the reliability of reported information.”

Press Release: Performance check for EU programmes: mixed results, while information quality should be further improved