Implementation of the EU Budget
The Ministry of Finance contributes to secure that the cooperation between the Commission and the Member States relies on sound financial management and effective protection of the EU budget implementation on all administrative levels.
Actors and Distribution of Roles
The Commission implements the EU budget within the limits imposed by the given appropriations and provisions in the Lisbon Treaty. The Commission – in cooperation with the Member States – shall carry out the budget in accordance with the principle of sound financial management, that is to say, in accordance with the principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Furthermore, the Commission has a close cooperation with the Member States concerning the protection of the EU’s financial interests against fraud and other irregularities, which could harm the budget.
The majority of the policies carried out in the Community are handled in a partnership between the Commission and the Member States. This shared management includes EU’s own resources, the common agricultural policy and the structural actions. The remaining policies of the Community are directly managed by the Commission, without necessarily involving the authorities of Member States. This concerns mainly the areas internal policies, research and external arrangements.
It is the Commission, which in the end carries the responsibility of the budget implementation towards the rest of the Union’s institutions. In order to meet this responsibility the Commission conducts internal controls of the Member States’ use of appropriations, among others through comprehensive requirements concerning the Member States’ accounting and other reporting procedures. Furthermore, the Commission makes controls on the spot of the procurement of EU’s own resources and the completion of programmes and projects (co)financed by EU. If a payment turns out to be wrong the Member State or the Commission will try to have it recovered. In this way the economic losses for the EU are diminished as much as possible.
The European Court of Auditors takes care of the external control of the accounts of the EU. Furthermore the Court of Auditors controls transactions and submits an annual report, which contains a Statement of Assurance on the quality of the budget implementation. This audit declaration is used by the Parliament and the Council in their approval of EU’s accounts and thus the Commission’s implementation of the budget (the discharge procedure).
The Engagement of the Ministry of Finance
It is of vital importance that the cooperation between the Commission and the Member States secures a sound financial management and effective protection of the EU budget on all administrative levels. The Ministry of Finance contributes to this by engaging in questions concerning the administration, financial management and control of the budget implementation process as well as the recovery of wrongly made payments. Throughout the years the Ministry of Finance has taken initiatives and presented proposals, which can contribute to an improvement of the EU budget implementation and the information of this.
From the financial year 2009 the Internal Audit of the Ministry of Finance has taken over the responsibility of submitting to the Commission the annual summary for Structural Actions and European Fisheries Funds managed by Denmark.
The annual summary consists of two parts. The first part contains an overview of all expenditures declared to the Commission under the Structural Funds (European Social Fund and European Regional Fund) and the European Fisheries Funds for the concerned period. The other part contains an overview of the results of the audits carried out in that same period.
At the meeting between the EU finance ministers on 16. February 2010, where the question regarding the approval of the EU accounts was discussed, The Netherlands and Denmark proposed that the member states should make their annual summaries public. The purpose of the proposal was to improve the transparency of the implementation of the EU budget.
The Ministry of Finance has therefore in line with the Dutch decided to make the Danish annual summary public on the web.
Read the annual summary for 2009 and the correspondence with the Commission relating to the approval of the summary here.
Further information is available on the following websites:
The Commissions website concerning sound financial management
The Commissions office for the combating of fraud
The Court of Auditors
