Report on the implementation of the action plan to strengthen the Commission's supervisory role under shared management of structural actions

The Commission adopted an action plan on 19 February 2008 to strengthen its supervision of Member States in relation to shared management of structural actions ("the Action Plan"). The object of the Action Plan is to reinforce actions by the Commission to address the high level of errors in reimbursements for structural actions and weaknesses in the Member States management and control systems. Taking account in particular of the conclusions and recommendations of the European Court of Auditors in its Annual Report for 2006, the Action Plan sets out 37 actions, under 10 main headings, to be carried out by the end of 2008.

The actions cover preventive measures to achieve more effective controls by Member States, corrective measures to ensure that irregular reimbursements are detected and recovered for the EU budget, and measures to improve the quality of reporting of key data by Member States and by the Commission essential for monitoring the effectiveness of multi-annual control systems. The approach is to reduce the residual risk of error on the one hand by applying measures to improve supervisory and control systems to reduce the occurrence of error and on the other hand by taking actions which will increase the rate of recovery.