Dear Ms Indiano,

Thank you for contacting the European Court of Auditors (ECA).

We acknowledge receipt of your message of 26 October 2023. Your request is
currently under treatment and we will provide you with a reply in due
course.

Kind regards

ECA-INFO team

      ECA-INFO

Information Desk
12, rue Alcide De Gasperi - L-1615 Luxembourg
[1]eca.europa.eu

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Dear Ms Indiano,

Thank you for contacting the European Court of Auditors (“the Court” or
“the ECA”).

As a foreword, we would like to inform you that your request has been
treated according to the rules on public access to ECA documents, which
are set out in [1]Decision No 37/2023 of the Court of Auditors regarding
public access to Court documents ("the Court's Decision"). Please note
that Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament,
Council and Commission documents is not applicable to our institution.

By your request of 26 October 2023, you ask access to a number of
documents regarding the audit of the RRF project “1000 esperti”. As far as
your request concerns “audit reports”, we would like to inform you that
the ECA published observations regarding this project, as regards the
reversal of a target, in its [2]2022 Annual Report on the implementation
of the EU budget, Chapter 11, Box 11.3, page 349 (“Box 11.3”). We would
like to underline that, in line with its methodology and internationally
accepted audit standards, our auditors based their work on a selection of
regions, therefore not all of them where part of the sample.

As regards the first part of your request, the other documents you ask
access to include the list of meetings, minutes of these meetings, and
emails exchanged between the Court of Auditors and any Italian Region
related to the RRF project “1000 esperti”, and are considered as
underlying audit documentation of this audited project.

Under Article 4.4.b of the Court’s Decision, the ECA may refuse access to
documents used in the preparation of the audit observations. In fact,
these minutes and exchanges, including at operational level, and the
documents leading to the formal adoption of a report or opinion by the
ECA, including draft of the report and working documents (ECA’s internal
analysis of the documents received from the auditee, or of the auditee’s
replies), are preparatory in nature and subject to changes during the
audit procedure.

Furthermore, as the ECA’s main auditee is the European Commission, not the
Member States or individual regions, the ECA is not in a position to
provide to the public detailed information on regional authorities. 

Therefore, we cannot give you specific information about meetings with the
regions and the national authorities that the ECA encountered during this
audit. We only confirm that the auditors had 4 meetings (including also
the final one) with Italian regions during the audit of this project. No
email exchanges or meetings took place with the authorities of the region
Emilia Romagna, referred to in the second part of your request.

As regards reports analysed by the ECA in order to form its conclusions
included in Box 11.3, the ECA analysed the reports received from the
Italian authorities. These reports constitute third parties documents, of
which the ECA is not the author.

In accordance with Article 5.1 of the Court's Decision, the ECA is not
allowed to disclose these documents. In application of the above-mentioned
article, the ECA shall confirm receipt of the application and supply the
name of the person, institution or body to whom the application must be
addressed. Therefore, you may consider contacting the Italian
[3]Dipartimento della funzione pubblica, within the [4]Presidenza del
Consiglio dei ministi, as well as the [5]Ispettorato Generale per il PNRR.

Moreover, it might be of your interest consulting the public information
existing on the Portale del Reclutamento, notably the call for expression
of interests related to the experts:

[6]https://www.inpa.gov.it/bandi-e-avvisi/?....

This notwithstanding, in application of Article 4.5 of the Court’s
Decision, the ECA may decide to allow access to a document where there is
an overriding public interest in its disclosure. We note that, contrary to
case-law*, you have not adduced any proof as to how disclosing the
requested documents to you would serve an overriding public interest. In
line with Article 4.6 of the Court’s Decision “The overriding public
interest used to justify disclosure must be both objective and general in
nature. The person alleging the existence of an overriding public interest
shall state which specific circumstances justify disclosure of the
documents concerned.”

Please be informed that, under Article 9 of the Court’s Decision, you can
ask the ECA to reconsider its position within one month of receiving this
reply. Your request for reconsideration should be submitted to the
President of the ECA.

Kind regards

ECA-INFO team

* according to which it is “for the party alleging an overriding public
interest, within the meaning of that clause, to prove that interest”
(judgment of 25 September 2014, Spirlea/Commission ([7]T-669/11),
paragraph 97).

      ECA-INFO

Information Desk
12, rue Alcide De Gasperi - L-1615 Luxembourg
[8]eca.europa.eu

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