The Commission claims back EUR12.5 million from Romania “for weaknesses in the controls of beneficiaries’ eligibility and expenses as well as for deficiencies in the application of sanctions in the ‘Modernization of agricultural holdings’ measure under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD),” the EU’s executive arm said in a news release Tuesday.
Moreover, the EC calculated financial corrections of EUR5.2 million for incomplete checks on parcels and on logbooks. The net financial impact of the correction is EUR2.96 million, as EUR2.2 million has already been recovered from Romania.
The European Commission has claimed back EUR414 million in unduly used CAP funds from 22 EU member states. The states targeted are Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Romania, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and the UK.
“Member states are responsible for paying out and checking expenditure under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and the Commission is required to ensure that Member States have made correct use of the funds. This money returns to the EU budget because of non-compliance with EU rules or inadequate control procedures on agricultural expenditure. Formally speaking, because some of these amounts have already been recovered from the member states the net financial impact of today’s decision will be some €393 million,” said the Commission.