In EU funds programing period 2014–2020 the project examination procedure will be simpler
On Tuesday, February 10, the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers (CoM) adopted a CoM regulation on the procedure for examination projects in European Union (EU) structural funds and Cohesion Fund programming period 2014–2020.
The regulation prescribes a procedure for selective pre-examination of the procurement documentation and the process of the procurement procedure, as well as project on-the-spot verifications and examination of payment requests. Also a procedure is prescribed for the provision of information about the inclusion of planned value added tax in the eligible project costs and examination of the provided information.
In contradiction to the EU funds programming period 2007–2013, this regulation stipulates that all examinations performed within the framework of a project are covered by one legislative act. Thus, it is ensured that it will be easier for beneficiaries of EU funding and institutions involved in the management of EU funds to realize the whole scope of examinations.
The legal framework stipulates that the number of institutions involved in project examinations is decreased, as well as the scope of project on-the-spot examinations is optimized. In the programming period 2014–2020 project on-the-spot examinations will be performed only by the cooperation institution (the Central Finance and Contracting Agency) and Managing Authority (Ministry of Finance). The Managing Authority and cooperation institution in planning their examinations will apply a joint audit principle regarding no-overlap of examinations. In addition, the right to perform examinations has been awarded to the Certifying Authority (Treasury), but it is not the basic function of the Certifying Authority and this right could be left unused.
Also the scope of the documentation to be submitted by the beneficiary is optimized. To reduce administrative burden on beneficiaries, the payment request is joint with the progress report to ensure more efficient project supervision and coverage of expenditure. Beneficiaries and the cooperation institution will be able to fulfil the data fields of the payment request in the Cohesion Policy Funds Management Information System for 2014–2020 without creating new IT systems/registers.
The draft regulation is available at CoM website.
