- “It is too early to it is too early to say. But this idea that you have to bring the commitment to deliver together with the reform is certainly something that that we would, that we would favour. On your questions on on who benefits from the from the fund. I think no one is benefiting from from the fund. The Commission is implementing the support to the member states, and it's doing it directly, but mostly by using implementing partners. And these implementing partners are for more than 60% international organization with whom we have concluded a a contribution agreement. So it essentially means that we are asking them to provide the support under our supervision and control to the Member States who requested the support. So we are paying them for a service. We are, we are not. We are not giving them or they are not benefiting from it. They are getting simply. They are simply getting a job to, to to do for which they are they are paid.”
Size of EU budget · European Globalisation Adjustment Fund · Conditions to access EU budget
- “Thank you very much. Chairs. Very happy to be here again in this, in this room with all of you to discuss this time the implementation of the technical support instrument. It is a very good moment, as you just recalled, to take stock of the implementation of that instrument, because not only we have published last month the annual report on 2024, but also, as you rightly recalled, because we have assessed, taken stock assessed in the mid-term evaluation, the implementation of the programme in the first half of this current MFF and also finally, very timely exchange, because we have received last Friday the request for the 2026 cycle. So I would like to to cover these three, these three elements, a bit of looking back at 2024, looking at the lessons we have learned from the mid-term evaluation, and give you maybe a bit of a snapshot of the 2026 cycle as we see it, starting with looking back at 2024. In 2024, we had, as was just recalled, a very large interest from member states for receiving support from the technical support instrument. As you can see here, the support requests really going through all the all the different member states and covering as traditionally a lot of different areas with a large majority on public administration and governance, but also many, many requests taken up on competitiveness and digital and green transition. When we look at the 2024 projects, of course they are still on the ground. Most of them, or the overall whelming majority of them have already been deployed.”
Size of EU budget · Conditions to access EU budget · Digitalization of public governance & administration
- “So let me underline that Hungary is benefiting from the technical support instrument as as any other any other member state. Uh, there was there was no, no, um, no particular treatment in that respect also because it's not funding delivery to the country, it's just a service delivered, uh, including in the area of rule of law that that you mentioned as, as as critical. Uh, we are, for example, uh, pursuing a project on strengthening the integrity authority that, uh, that has been created in, in Hungary for the fight against, uh, against corruption also as a result of the commitments made in the, uh, in the ERP by, by, by by Hungary. So, so far the country has benefited, uh, will we continue, uh, support this country? Like like like the others in particular in the area of rule of law. Rule of law is certainly flagged in the European semester, in particular for Hungary year after year, as a as a key challenge and key priority. So when there are good projects that could help implementing or improving the rule of law in the country, we would certainly, uh, try to to select them and give them and give them a priority. I hope I answered all of your questions. Otherwise happy to to to come back. Thank you very much.”
EU Supervision of the Rule of Law · Rule of law in Hungary · Conditions to access EU budget
- “Really looking at the country specific recommendations that they that they have received and looking at those cases where for them, the DSI would make the biggest, the biggest impact. Knowing that they have to prioritise the finalisation of the Recovery and resilience facility. This has resulted in actually a very substantial reduction of the number of requests. We have received just 300 requests, which is almost a third of what we had had last year, showing that the member states have really prioritized themselves. The issues where they want to receive the support, a higher share of multi-country projects and in the request, which is very positive, and some of them being very popular, like the creation of an energy Academy that will help Member states in building their capacity to deal with energy regulation and energy market functioning, which is a very critical aspect for us at at the moment. And finally, uh, Constance, success on the Public Administration Cooperation exchange, which is allowing on very, very punctual issues the the exchanges of best practices between between member states. So, as you can see, uh, a lot of a lot of work already already achieved and a more strategic approach taken for for the two years that we have remaining on the implementation of the of the TSR, trying to maximize the impact and to align it fully on the prioritization that is done at the EU level through the European semester. Thank you very much for your attention and looking forward to your questions.”
European Semester (social dimension) · Digitalization of public governance & administration
- “As you can as you can see here, from the green from the green bar, very, very few have been discontinued. And and very, very few are under under closure. This is normal simply because the moment between the moment of the request and the moment of the completion of the projects, you generally have around around two years in terms of mode of implementation. You recall that the the TSC forces different types of of implementation mode. And in 2024, we have given a very strong priority to the implementation through indirect management, which Uh, increases or collaboration with a broad range of international organizations providing them their support uh, to to the, to the member states, the size the share of procurement as as as reduced. Also following some observations that we received from this House. Answering particularly the question you just raised on the multi-country projects, multi-country projects are very important in the in the implementation of the TSC because not only they provide support to the individual member States, but they also provide a very fertile ground for them to exchange on similar problems and find, uh, relevant solutions. Also, looking at the best practices of each and every one of them. As you can see, we have a constant, uh, increase of this multi-country projects as we as we take them, covering a broad range of topics. And if we look just at the at the request that we have just received. You can see that the the multi-country projects account for a majority of the requests from the member States.”
Size of EU budget · Discharge of EU institutions and agencies · Conditions to access EU budget
- “Um, uh, as, as should be on the procurement part, which was the one that this House was most critical against, we have reduced considerably, uh, the, the share of, of direct procurement, uh, under the framework contract, it was only 23% last, uh, last last year. It came down from, I think, more than 40% in the previous, uh, in the previous years. Uh, so clearly we've heard that that strong message and we have tried to favour more, uh, the, the international organization, uh, cooperation in the implementation of the of of the program. We have also favored the implementation through other EU bodies, because then that essentially stays in the institutional framework that uh, that that we have at EU level, which we thought were the best way of providing the support and and to the extent we can. And that was a bit my message on helping member states to design plans. I think these are also things that could be done, uh, in-house by by the commission, because this is where we have we have the expertise. But of course, here we have the very strict constraint on, on resources. Um. So that was for the, for the beneficiaries and, and the and the priorities for the, for the, for the next year, I think priorities again, as, as I mentioned before, uh, priorities on the most ambitious, uh, and more difficult technically reforms with the highest commitment of the member states to, to, to implement, to implement them and on areas that have been identified at EU level through the semester process as the key areas for for the, for, for the Member States in implementation of of the of EU law on the support to Hungary.”
Size of EU budget · Rule of law in Hungary · Conditions to access EU budget
- “A few words now on the mid-term evaluation. What did this mid-term evaluation tell us? Well, first it told us that the TSI is an extremely popular instrument with a very high appreciation by all the stakeholders, starting, of course, from the beneficiaries to the Member States who appreciate the quality of the support provided to, to, to them, but also of all the partners we are providing support with. It also shows that the administrative capacity of the Member States, which is so essential to also deploy EU policies in general, and not only not only support, has been improved thanks to the to the support provided on very, very practical and technical aspects through the TSI. It also shows that the broad range of topics that are covered in the previous cycles are also completely aligned with the top priorities of the EU with with the all the flagships that we have that we have deployed and it it shows also this constant increase. I was already mentioning on the, uh, the multi-country projects. But of course, a mid-term evaluation is not only here to be happy about the good outcome of the of the programme, it's also, and most importantly, there to see what could be further, further improved. And here what we take away from this mid-term evaluation are four main issues. The first one is that we have to be very careful when selecting the requests on the ambition of the projects that the Member States are putting forward.”
Size of EU budget · Cohesion and rural funding · Conditions to access EU budget
- “And I know that this is something that this House is also very, very attentive to. There is, under the regulation, no obligation for Member States to follow up on the request on the support that was provided to them. They they can implement it, but they can also forget about it without any obligation for them to, to, to, to implement or without any obligation or legal obligation for them to report on the outcome of projects. And what we see is that it's only in 60%, on average of cases that the member states actually report on the outcome of the projects that they have implemented, which in turns affect our ability to measure the impact of of the projects that we have pursued. And clearly, this is something where improvements have to be have to be sought. And that's linked to the last point, which is the impact on on of the of the different projects. Of course, as we have many, many small scale projects, measuring their impact is difficult. Again, difficult as well, because the feedback we are receiving from member States is clearly insufficient when it goes to the specifics. So these are really the four points for improvement that we are taking with us, and we'll try to work on in the future cycles, and certainly in any future instruments. You were particularly interested on the support that the TSI brought to the implementation of the of the RF. It brought a support in many different, many different ways.”
Transparency requirements of EU institutions · Size of EU budget · Conditions to access EU budget
- “The. The first one was support to the design of the plans. The second one was support to the implementation of the plan. And the third type of support was support of the implementation of the individual reforms included in the plans. And the conclusions we draw or the or appreciation of the effectiveness of the support industry elements is is is is very varied. On the first one, the support to drafting the plans themselves paid for for the the be it for the repower EU chapters, albeit for the assessment of the do no significant harm principle there. It's a bit of a mixed picture. It's been coming from external parties relatively late in the day and at the moment where the guidance by the Commission on the drawing up of the of the plans was because the legislative basis was not yet fully fully enforced, was was still in the making. So probably not the most effective support. On the other hand, what the support that was provided in the operation and coordination, or in the communication of the result of the RF. We had a very large communication project on the implementation of the ERPs has been very, very effective, especially where the member states have really wanted to make use of it. And here we have very good example, for example, on communication in Slovakia, pretty bad ones, for example, on the monitoring of the implementation of the Romanian plan. So it really directly depends on whether the member states was willing to make use of the support.”
Size of EU budget · Discharge of EU institutions and agencies · Conditions to access EU budget
- “So we are trying our best. But of course, if you don't have a legal basis for it, it's it's there are limits to their, their, their obligation to, to reply to or to to a request. But it is certainly something if we talk about the future that would, that would need to be to be dealt with. Because, because it is just fair that if you use EU money to, to provide support, then you also see what is done with, with, with the support. So fully, fully an agreement with the with you, we are doing the best we can within the legal framework we have. But we would certainly see this as, as needed to be stepped up in the in in the future. On the project selections and how does it work? And can we be more explicit? Well, you have the criteria of the regulation which are binding criteria. And the scoring system that we are applying is actually checking, first and foremost, that all the requirements of the regulation are are addressed by the request. You have one of the of the requirement, which is the, for example, the urgency and the magnitude of the of the request. We look at it, not all of them are equally urgent. And this is an assessment that we that, that, that that we that, that we make, we look also at, at the breadth of the, of the issue that needs to be addressed as required by the regulation.”
Transparency requirements of EU institutions · Transparency requirements for interest groups · Conditions to access EU budget
- “And then we, we, we, we apply that. So it's really strictly linked to the criteria of the regulations. Then of course, once we've applied this criteria of the regulation, we we have and we consistently, consistently had in all the previous years more requests that do qualify and do meet the criteria, then we can then we can accept. And this is why a ranking has to be has to be done Don again. The more ambition, the more important the challenge, the more the better. Quality of the request. Also are the things that we that we take, that we take into account. We will look on how we can we can explain that in a, in a more in more detail. I want to insist also on the quality of the reform because of the quality of the request, because some member states just say, I would like to have support for doing something which is not very precisely defined, which also shows that they haven't taken a lot of attention and care to prepare it, which also probably means that their commitment to deliver on the request is not is not the highest, and therefore the priority for that request to be taken is not the highest. So we really try to, to, to, to to look at the, at the biggest impact we can expect from dealing with the with, with the request when they, when they come in.”
Size of EU budget · European Globalisation Adjustment Fund · Conditions to access EU budget
- “Uh, it's just not an efficient process. And why would the Commission be the one having to select from these three for these 900, the 100 or 150 last year, we could we could take. So asking the member states to also have a very careful look at, at prioritization for themselves. I think it was not asking asking too much. I believe the second thing that we have really insisted on was prioritization. Also among the challenges, and then going back to the country specific recommendations, saying these are the agreed priorities for the country. Again, it's not the commission saying it's a priority. It's the agreed priorities for implementing EU policy at national level by by the, by the member states. So asking the member states, suggesting strongly to the member states to pick from those I think was also was also a fair, a fair approach. And the strain on resources that we are very much experiencing for the finalisation of the RF is also something that the member states themselves are experiencing. So it's a joint prioritization that we had to that we had to do with limited resources, as we all have limited resources in in 2026. Will that continue in 2027? Some of it certainly. I think the fact that we have to be more strategic to choose this, this reform projects very, very well ensure that there will be follow up and commitment from the member state is certainly something that I would I would hope to see happening, because it is really drawing on your criticism, drawing on the findings of the mid-term evaluation, that we need this instrument to catch really the right, ambitious, difficult reform projects that the member states have agreed they have to do in the context of the semester, so that I would certainly expect you to to take place on the next MFF.”
European Semester (social dimension) · Size of EU budget · Conditions to access EU budget
- “As you can see from the from the graph on the left hand side, member states lag the sea to do small adjustments, small improvement of their internal workings and internal procedures, they are less. Well, there is less appetite from their side to come and request support for launching very far reaching structural reforms, from asking from international expertise for difficult topics and difficult reforms. And maybe this is where they need it the most. It's more uncomfortable, it's more difficult. But this is probably where we can make the biggest, the biggest difference. So this is certainly something that that we are that we are taking taking with us. The second point is on the the alignment of with the country specific recommendation. If you look at it in a very, very high level, as I mentioned before, you will see that the areas covered by the supports do match with the areas of, of of priorities for, for the EU. But if you start looking in more details on the specific recommendations that were made, be it on improvement of the labour market, the functioning of the labour market in one in in one member States on the improvement of the of the tax collection in in another one there you see that the support is much, much less directly linked to those difficult country specific recommendations. Really important challenges facing by by member states. Also, because there is a bit of of of reluctance to embark on the difficult under difficult reforms. The third take away from the evaluation for us is is the follow up.”
European Semester (social dimension) · Conditions to access EU budget · EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
- “Point well taken will will will reflect on this and see how we can improve it for the next for the next round. We would, however, want to to point you also to the to the website where we have each and every project displayed there with a lot of detail on what it was, what the results are, and how they can be disseminated also to other member States and what what the EU funds essentially have been, have been used for. So there is a lot more of information on the individual projects on, on a website. We just thought that if we include all of this in the, in the annual report itself, it would it would become extremely, extremely long. And that's why it's it's more an aggregated view on, on on the support for for 2024. On your question, on the absence of of performance or the absence of measurement of of of the impact of the of the support provided. Can't agree more with you. It is true. It is a limit in the legal base of the TSI, as we have it at the moment, that there is no obligation for the Member States to inform, and no obligation to follow up on the support that they have received. It's something that we have tried to push. We have tried to push it by asking the member states, by coming back to them with with, with with, with questions. Uh, right after the conclusion of the project and a year after the conclusion of the project to ask them really what what they've done with the support and to be able to assess that, that result.”
Transparency requirements of EU institutions · Size of EU budget · Discharge of EU institutions and agencies
- “Thank you very much. Thank you very much for all of your questions. Um, so turning to the first one. So why don't we have more ambitious projects in in the request? Uh, and is there a difference between between member states in, in, in, in terms of ambition of their of their request? I think the ambitious projects are, are more difficult. Uh, they're more difficult, uh, to, to to to do. There's always of an appetite to do uh, improvement of your administrative, uh, operations to have capacity buildings in technical matters. All of these things are very, very consensual for the for the member states because they're important and and they should be done. If you come to structural reforms to the one addressing the CSR. And I'll come back to it in a moment. Those ones are more difficult, politically more sensitive. And this is why I, I would imagine the member states are more hesitant in, in requesting support for, for for them. Um, is there a difference between member states? Not really. I think many, many member states do ask for this. And you, the number you saw in the presentation showing the type of of support provided is actually quite, quite similar across the different the different member states. We see also a lot of appetite for the exchanges between administrations across of the of the EU because again it's a very useful thing, but it's not one that is politically politically sensitive in the new, in the new MFF. How could could support be provided? I think many of your questions, uh, related to this in the proposal that the Commission has put has put forward, it is specifically mentioned that member States can request support to implement the reforms that they will have chosen to include in their in their national recovery, international plans.”
Size of EU budget · Conditions to access EU budget · EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
- “But it is a constant, uh, feature that we get more requests than we can take on the, on the budget that we, that we, that we have. Um, on the question whether the member states are free to to choose a reform they are doing, I think it's more something directed to, uh, the for the past new MFF for the future than, than to the technical support instrument. I would like to recall that the, the the agenda or the menu for reforms that were included in the RF was not invented by the Commission. It was based on the on the country specific recommendations of the European Semester, which are proposed by the Commission. Yes, but agreed by by the Council. Uh, every every year. So it's not something that the Commission had imposed on, on the member states. And in any event, it was for the member states to select among those country specific recommendations, those they would address with their recovery and resilience plan. There was an obligation to address a subsequent, uh, A substantial subset of of of requests but not of of of country specific recommendations, but not all of them. So clearly there is a freedom for the member States to pick the reform agenda. Among those that they have commonly agreed are the most important, important ones. On your worry, on the prioritization for the 2026 cycle, getting 900 requests as we got last year. If you know that you will not be able to to, to to to take, uh, so many simply because you can't you can't deal with them neither in budgetary terms nor in human resources terms.”
European Semester (social dimension) · Size of EU budget · Conditions to access EU budget
- “Which brings us back to the previous point I was making, that there is no obligation for member states to follow up in the current system. And finally, where we have support of the TSC to design and implement some specific measures in drops there, we have extremely positive experience, for example, in in the tax inspections and audits in Romania, very difficult and very important reform for the country included in the in the ERP, and which benefited from dedicated support in the design and implementation of that reform from the sea. Another very good example is the development of a reduction plan of water losses in Croatia. Very complex topic requiring a lot of coordination. Here the support allowed the Croatian measure to be implemented very successfully. Let me conclude by turning to to the next cycle, and what will keep us busy in the coming in the coming years. Drawing from the implementation of the and the mid-term review of the of the sea, but also on the very specific context in which we are, as this Committee knows very well, this is the last year of implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. So this is a year where all the member states and as well as as, as a commission, is focusing very strongly on making sure that the final investments and reforms are successfully completed. So that also means that drawing on this, we have called on the member States to be very strategic and very specific on the support they would be they would be requesting.”
Cohesion and rural funding · Conditions to access EU budget · EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
- “Uh, and this is a very good element, because what we have seen is that where the support has been the most effective was in the current system, where there was a commitment from the member states to do a reform. And that commitment was backed by the fact that the reform was included in the in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. So there was certainty that the member state would follow up on, on the reform that they had chosen to propose, uh, to, to the commission as part of their plan. And then the support was provided for them to to be to be helped simply in in delivering on that reform. So this combination of having the choice of the member states to do a reform that does answer to the country specific recommendations and to get then in turn, the support from the from the Commission has been extremely valuable and is exactly what is proposed as part of the EU facility in in the new in in the new MFF. The new MFF also allows the commission to offer support in other in other areas. But but but it will be at at at the Commission's initiative. Um on the on on on your criticism on the granularity of the information in the annual report.”
Own EU resources · Size of EU budget · Conditions to access EU budget