Dear Ms Sabolova,

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

We acknowledge receipt of your e-mail of 21 May 2025. 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 Sabolova,

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

Your request refers to Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, but it is actually,
by its content, mostly a request for information and only marginally a
request for access to documents related in part to the ECA’s [1]Special
Report 9/2020 The EU core road network: shorter travel times but network
not yet fully functional (“the Special Report”). Your request for
information has been treated, by analogy, according to the rules on public
access to ECA documents, which are set out in [2]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.

In point 1) a of your request you ask “which EU legal acts and specific
provisions did the Czech Republic fail to comply with, resulting in this
limited absorption of funds in the period 2014–2020”.

We would like to underline that [3]Article 317 of the Treaty on the
Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) establishes that the European
Commission shall implement the EU budget in cooperation with the Member
States and in accordance with the financial regulations.

As institution responsible for the implementation for the EU budget, the
Commission is in general the ECA’s main auditee and addressee of its
recommendations, including in this report. In accordance with Article
259(1) of the [4]EU Financial Regulation (Regulation 2018/1046),
applicable at the time of the audit,  and Article 4.2 of the Court’s
Decision, the ECA’s audit observations (other than the final observations
published in its reports) ”shall remain confidential” and cannot be
disclosed to third parties. 

Only the observations that the ECA made in its published special report
reflect the institution’s official position and can be shared with the
public.

We have already indicated in our previous reply of 18 March 2024 that the
ECA’s audit work results in recommendations that are addressed for
follow-up and potential corrective action to the European Commission or,
sometimes, to Member States. Against this background, it is not within the
ECA’s mandate to elaborate further or to engage with the public, outside
the framework of its reports, on any potential incompliance by Czech
authorities with EU rules and provisions beyond the context of our special
report.

Furthermore, as the ECA’s observations published in its reports have no
binding legal value, it is up to the Commission as institution responsible
for the correct and uniform application of EU law to decide in which cases
there would be noncompliance with EU provisions by a Member State and to
take corrective action, including, where appropriate, by recovering the EU
funds at issue.

With reference to the audited projects that were analysed in the Special
report, the European Commission refers to the withdrawal by the Czech
authorities of several important major projects on TEN-T core network
initially envisaged for ESIF support, in its reply to paragraph 33 of the
ECA’s report (page 50 of the English version of the report). The
Commission mentions, as reason for this withdrawal, issues of compliance
with EU environmental acquis. As the Commission is the author and the
owner of the text at stake, you may consider addressing specific questions
to the European Commission. Furthermore, information about the
Commission’s decisions in infringement cases is publicly available online
and can be searched by EU country, policy area or date at the link:
[5]https://ec.europa.eu/atwork/applying-eu-....

Moreover, you may also consider consulting the following documents which
analyse the difficulties in the project implementation:

Czech SAI report:
[6]https://www.nku.cz/assets/kontrola/analy..., and
World Bank Group, Doing Business 2018,
[7]http://www.doingbusiness.org/en/data/exp....

In point 1b of your request you are seeking for the information related to
the “exact total amount allocated to the Czech Republic for TEN-T highway
projects during the 2007–2013, 2014–2020, 2021–2027 programming periods”.
Please note that the details on the ERDF and Cohesion Fund final
allocations to road projects for the 2007–2013 and 2014–2020 programming
periods are available in the Annexes I-III of the Special report. For the
2021–2027 period, our audit did not cover such period, therefore we have
no details. However, you may find relevant data on the European
Commission’s official webpages for the [8]2007–2013, [9]2014–2020, and
[10]2021–2027 programming periods, as well as on Commission’s website on
cohesion funding: [11]https://kohesio.ec.europa.eu/en/projects. You may
also consider consulting the [12]European Funds Portal in the Czech
Republic, which collects the information related to the funds for the
different programming periods of 2007-2013, 2014-2020 and 2021-2027.

In point 2 of your request, you are asking “which projects were actually
funded from the EU funds in the period during the 2007–2013, 2014–2020,
2021–2027 programming periods”.

We note that your question is very broad and exceeds the projects that
were analysed by the ECA in the course of the audit leading to the special
report in question. As the Commission is the institution responsible for
managing EU funds, in cooperation with the Member Stages, you may consider
contacting DG REGIO of the European Commission as regards this
information.

In point 3 of your request you ask which “projects were rejected funding
from the EU funds in the period during the 2007–2013, 2014–2020, 2021–2027
programming periods” and in point 4 of your request you ask which “EU
institution(s) decided not to approve or not to release funding for these
projects? How were these decisions formally adopted or communicated”.

The ECA has no role in the approval and allocation of EU funds, but the
European Commission and the national Czech managing authorities. You may
consider contacting may consider contacting DG REGIO of the European
Commission, as regards this information.

In point 5 of your request you ask “what exactly must the Czech Republic
do or comply with in order to fully access the available funds in the
future”.

As regards the decision-making process and the conditions that the Member
State must comply with in order to have full access to the available
funds, as mentioned previously, the European Commission is responsible for
the implementation of the EU budget and the shared management of the funds
with the Member States. Consequently, you may consider addressing this
specific question to the [13]European Commission.

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, preferably using the [14]contact form available on
the ECA website, or by e-mail to: [15][ECA request email].

Kind regards

ECA-INFO team

      ECA-INFO

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

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