In response to the conclusions of the European Court of Auditors in its annual reports of 2006 and 2007 on the high level of errors in reimbursements for structural actions and weaknesses in the Member States management and control systems, on 19 February 2008 the Commission adopted an action plan to strengthen its supervisory role under shared management of structural actions. The Action Plan set out 37 actions, mainly based on the recommendations made by the Court of Auditors in its annual reports.The actions covered preventive measures, to achieve more effective controls by Member States, and corrective measures to ensure that irregular reimbursements are detected and recovered for the EU budget. The approach is to reduce the residual risk of error by, on the one hand, applying measures to improve supervisory and control systems to reduce the occurrence of error and on the other, by taking actions which will increase the rate of recovery.
