European Parliament
2019-2024
Committee on Budgetary Control
2020/2045(INI)
15.4.2021
OPINION
of the Committee on Budgetary Control
for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Development and the
Committee on Budgets
on the implementation report on the EU Trust Funds and the Facility for
Refugees in Turkey
(2020/2045(INI))
Rapporteur for opinion: Tomáš Zdechovský
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United in diversity
EN
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SUGGESTIONS
The Committee on Budgetary Control calls on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the
Committee on Development and the Committee on Budgets, as the committees responsible, to
incorporate the following suggestions into their motion for a resolution:
A.
whereas the Lisbon Treaty reinforced the role of the European Parliament to ensure
coherence and democratic accountability;
B.
whereas setting up trust funds and going beyond the EU’s budgetary rules undermines
the principle of a single budget and creates a number of issues in terms of sound
financial management, transparency and accountability; whereas the four existing
EU Trust Funds (EUTFs)1 are used as a financing mechanism to implement
international cooperation and development measures; whereas this increases the
complexity of existing financial structures, which may lead to operational inefficiencies;
C.
whereas the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRT) differs from the EUTFs, mainly
because it remains embedded within the budget of the EU;
D.
whereas according to the Commission, the FRT is designed to coordinate existing EU
financing instruments so they are mobilised in a consistent and joined-up manner to
address the needs of refugees;
E.
whereas the European Parliament agreed that half of the expenditure of the FRT should
be borne from the EU budget, amounting to EUR 3 billion for 2016-2019;
1.
Notes that the EUTFs are designed to swiftly respond to challenging circumstances and
to increase the flexibility of funding, which makes it difficult to ascertain2 what the
concrete emergencies are, how additional funding is addressing these, and to ensure
qualitative scrutiny of their results on the ground; reiterates, therefore, that these
instruments should be classified as exceptional or emergency-led and that their added
value and effects on the ground should be properly justified and monitored;
2.
Stresses that the EU must always ensure that EUTF projects and programmes promote
and protect human rights; considers that robust systems must be put in place to monitor
the human rights impacts, together with an accountability system with specific
indicators to prevent and address breaches of international law;
3.
Stresses that the need to create the EUTFs arose partly as a consequence of the EU
budget not being flexible enough and lacking possibilities to finance unexpected needs
in several areas;
4.
Recalls the European Court of Auditors’ (ECA) Special Report No 27/2018 entitled ‘the
Facility for Refugees in Turkey: helpful support, but improvements needed to deliver
1 The Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, the Bêkou Trust Fund, the Trust Fund for Colombia, and the Regional
Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis.
2 Study of the Policy Department for Budgetary Affairs of May 2018 entitled ‘Oversight and Management of the
EU Trust Funds: Democratic Accountability Challenges and Promising Practices’.
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more value for money’; notes the report’s findings that while the audited projects
provided helpful support to refugees and most of them achieved their outputs, half of
them had not achieved their expected outcomes; notes, in addition, that the monitoring
of the cash assistance projects under the FRT was limited because the Commission and
its UN implementing partners did not have access to primary beneficiary data;
welcomes the fact that some of the recommendations of the ECA’s report have been
taken into consideration for the programming of the second tranche of the FRT; invites
the Commission to report further on the implementation of the ECA’s recommendations
in the context of the discharge procedure;
5.
Strongly insists on the need to ensure as a matter of priority that the implementation of
the FRT and the EUTFs is consistent with the EU’s general principles and legal
commitments as laid down in the Treaties, as well as EU policies and objectives,
including democracy, the rule of law and human rights; underlines the need to ensure
that these objectives are met;
6.
Takes note of the ECA’s Special Report No 27/2018 on the FRT, in which it ultimately
concluded that the facility could have been more effective and could achieve more value
for money; considers that there is still room for improvement in terms of the efficiency
of humanitarian projects;
7.
Calls on the Commission to continuously monitor whether the FRT is being
implemented in line with the principles of good financial management, transparency,
proportionality, and non-discriminatory and equal treatment, while fully respecting
Parliament’s right to exercise scrutiny and control over EU funding;
8.
Is extremely worried about the fact that in its attempts to monitor humanitarian projects,
the Commission was hindered by the Turkish authorities’ refusal to grant access to data
on the beneficiaries of the two cash assistance projects; regrets the fact that these
beneficiaries could not be tracked as a result;
9.
Regrets the fact that the refugees’ needs related to municipal infrastructure and socio-
economic support have been insufficiently covered under the FRT3; calls on the
Commission, therefore, to better address these needs with a view to improving the
streamlining and complementarity of the assistance provided; recalls the need,
furthermore, to ensure equal access to education and training, health, protection and
other basic needs, paying particular attention to girls and young women;
10.
Welcomes the success of the first tranche of the FRT, in particular the Emergency
Social Safety Net (ESSN) – the biggest humanitarian project managed by the
Commission; welcomes the progress of the second tranche, which is facilitating a
gradual shift from humanitarian to development assistance;
11.
Underlines the positive impact of the FRT for the vulnerable target groups, delivering
access to healthcare, education and the integration programme and humanitarian
assistance for 1.8 million people;
12.
Stresses the challenging working environment faced by non-governmental organisations
3 ECA Special Report No 27/2018.
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(NGOs) in the implementation of the FRT; invites the Commission to address the need
to improve the operating environment for civil society organisations, including by
continuing its dialogue with the Turkish authorities on issues around registration and
permits;
13.
Welcomes the monitoring reports provided through the FRT Results Framework;
underlines the need to carry out strict monitoring exercises and ex ante and ex post
audits, including in Turkey, in order to ensure compliance with the Financial Regulation
and guarantee control and access for the ECA, the European Anti-Fraud Office and the
European Public Prosecutor’s Office; invites the Commission to scale up reporting on
the FRT and to provide all the information necessary for the European Parliament to
exercise its right of scrutiny and control; calls on the Commission to ensure that FRT
funding reaches the right beneficiaries, specifically targets refugee projects and is not
used for any other purposes; recalls, in this context, the importance of accessibility of
primary beneficiary data and of the traceability of EU funding and invites the
Commission to present the planned strategic mid-term evaluation of the FRT; insists,
moreover, that the Turkish authorities grant implementing partners full access to the
data on the eligible beneficiaries in order to improve the accountability and efficiency of
the monitoring framework of these flagship projects4;
14.
Notes with concern that the COVID-19 crisis led to a significant slowdown in progress
on individual actions and the FRT as a whole, resulting in an estimated delay to
implementation of between 3 and 12 months as of June 2020; underlines the fact that
according to the monitoring report from November 2020, the most vulnerable refugees
working in the informal sector have been the worst affected; regrets the fact that the
suspension of in-person activities, such as in the areas of social cohesion, language
teaching and psycho-social support, has disproportionately affected women refugees;
15.
Recalls that the EUTFs are flexible instruments allowing swift, effective and efficient
implementation of projects in the framework of humanitarian aid and emergencies,
while ensuring sound financial management;
16.
Recognises the difficulties encountered in these kinds of undertakings, due to different
factors such as diversity of the target groups and location;
17.
Stresses that the actions under each strand of the FRT will be better and more
sustainable and achieve more value for money if they are part of an integrated approach;
18.
Calls on the Commission to assess the current orientation of the humanitarian
assistance, whose goal is to reduce and ultimately eradicate poverty, and to improve the
efficiency and monitoring of the cash assistance projects;
19.
Stresses the need for good-quality monitoring and acknowledges the difficulties faced in
overseeing the two cash assistance projects, as the Commission and its UN
implementing partners did not have access to the original beneficiary data;
20.
Notes the efforts and measures taken by the EU and its Member States to support
refugees and host communities in Turkey; calls on the Commission to improve its
4
Ibid.
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communication strategy and to intensify its contact with the general public to raise
awareness of the EU’s efforts in order to improve knowledge of these actions and their
objectives;
21.
Stresses that efforts must be made to monitor and enforce EU values and standards in
the area of support for refugees, which would foster trust in the EU by demonstrating its
ability to deliver on its aims;
22.
Calls on the Commission to impress upon the Turkish authorities the need to improve
the working environment for international NGOs;
23.
Calls on the Commission to take action against all attempts by Turkey to use the FRT as
leverage against the EU.
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INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION
Date adopted
14.4.2021
Result of final vote
+:
24
–:
2
0:
2
Members present for the final vote
Matteo Adinolfi, Olivier Chastel, Caterina Chinnici, Lefteris
Christoforou, Corina Crețu, Martina Dlabajová, José Manuel Fernandes,
Luke Ming Flanagan, Isabel García Muñoz, Monika Hohlmeier, Jean-
François Jalkh, Pierre Karleskind, Alin Mituța, Younous Omarjee,
Tsvetelina Penkova, Markus Pieper, Sabrina Pignedoli, Michèle Rivasi,
Petri Sarvamaa, Vincenzo Sofo, Michal Wiezik, Angelika Winzig,
Tomáš Zdechovský
Substitutes present for the final vote
Joachim Stanisław Brudziński, Maria Grapini, Hannes Heide, Mikuláš
Peksa, Viola Von Cramon-Taubadel
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FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION
24
+
ECR
Joachim Stanisław Brudziński, Vincenzo Sofo
NI
Sabrina Pignedoli
PPE
Lefteris Christoforou, José Manuel Fernandes, Monika Hohlmeier, Markus Pieper, Petri Sarvamaa, Michal
Wiezik, Angelika Winzig, Tomáš Zdechovský
Renew
Olivier Chastel, Martina Dlabajová, Pierre Karleskind, Alin Mituța
S&D
Caterina Chinnici, Corina Crețu, Isabel García Muñoz, Maria Grapini, Hannes Heide, Tsvetelina Penkova
Verts
Mikuláš Peksa, Michèle Rivasi, Viola Von Cramon-Taubadel
2
-
ID
Matteo Adinolfi, Jean-François Jalkh
2
0
The Left
Luke Ming Flanagan, Younous Omarjee
Key to symbols:
+ : in favour
- : against
0 : abstention
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