EU Policymakers · ATLAS
Francesco Felice CARLUCCI
European Commission · Head of Unit · SG
What Francesco Felice CARLUCCI has said (4)
- “So again, important to distinguish between the design and the implementation. And then I think many, many things were said today. But I think it's very important. I mean, many points were raised on the on the indicators, for example, which I think it's a it's a point that was made. It is true that the court found weaknesses on the indicators to measure results and impact, but it's also true that the RF is the first instrument with more than 6000 milestones and targets to measure progress in implementation. And that's the whole thing. The idea of the instrument is to reward progress in implementation, and therefore, as we advance in implementation, we don't have all the data on impact. That's why very often you have milestones and targets on on output only. But these impacts are materializing. We can see this in the real economy. And we will be able to further assess that with our evaluation. Having said that, I'm very thankful for, again for the good discussion. And of course, we'll be listening carefully to all the points. And we take care and we take note of all this. You will see that the Commission itself, in its mid-term evaluation of last year, took a number of lessons learned on what worked and what worked less well of the IRF. And of course, we're looking forward to further discussing with you. Thank you.”
Transparency requirements of EU institutions · Discharge of EU institutions and agencies · Conditions to access EU budget
- “This is not a criticism on the implementation of the instrument. This is a criticism on the climate, the climate coefficient that were agreed by this House and the Council together. These are climate coefficients that are in the regulation negotiated by you and the Council. And the court simply takes different views from you and from us on what is green. To give you an example. The court considers that a measure for creating rail should not be tagged 100% green because its construction and should be targeted 40%. But this House and the Commission agrees, consider that rail is very important for the green transition and should be targeted 100%. The court did not find mistakes by the commission but had methodological differences. And of course, this is something we can be discussing together and reflecting on, but it's important to distinguish between the design and the implementation. And the same goes for for other points that were made. Today, for example, on the importance of traceability and where the fund goes. The regulation is designed in a way where the member states are the beneficiaries of the fund, and member states have the obligation to know exactly where every euro goes of the different is what the regulation says about the transparency and the transparent publication of this. And in this respect, it is true that the original regulation was not as transparent as probably you wanted. And thanks to you, with the revisions, there was this obligation first for the member States to communicate to us the data at least on the largest recipients.”
Transparency requirements of EU institutions · Green Taxonomy · EU support of rail transport
- “Thank you. Chair. And I would like to thank all the members for their contribution for for this very open and frank debate, which we appreciate. I mean, I think many things were said today, and I think I would like to start by recalling how the instrument was set at the time of a completely extraordinary health crisis. And the RRF was established with the two objectives to allow the EU economy to recover from the crisis and to develop the basis for the future, including for the green transition. Uh, we can say today that we are, of course, in the middle of the implementation of the RF, that the RF has been effective in supporting the EU economy. We can see it from the figures. The simple announcement of the RF made spreads go down. We can see it from the fact and data that public investment remained high, where normally in public, in crisis investments go down. So the RF has been effective in that respect. Uh, we have published last year the mid-term evaluation of the RF, where a lot of this is assessed, and we are already working on the ex-post evaluation of the RF to be able to assess impacts, because its true impact takes time to to assess. And this evaluation will come in in two years from now in 2028. Sorry, but I think it's important looking into the green transition in particular, which is, of course, the topic of this committee here. The RF was extraordinary and very innovative in setting very high standards for the green transition, which is one of the objectives of the instrument.”
State Aid
- “The 37% climate spending means that more than €340 billion have been allocated for green expenses. The application of the do no significant harm to all measures in the RF has been the first in a kind, has been extraordinary in ensuring that no investments do harm to the environment. Of course, the implementation is ongoing. We are at the moment, at around slightly less than 50% of the milestones and target either satisfactorily fulfilled or declared as completed by the Commission in the aid of green transition. We are at around 40% of milestones on target reported as completed or satisfactorily fulfilled. And if you look in our latest annual report, which was published in October, you will see the concrete achievements that the RF brought for the green transition in terms of reforms and in terms of investment from energy efficiency to renewables to decarbonisation. I think what is very important here, and this is one point I would like to make, is that we, of course, look very carefully at the report of the Court of Auditors. And I think it's important to distinguish between observations, criticism on the design of the instrument and on its implementation, because the criticism of the court, which is also one that many of you have brought forward today on the fact that some measures were not tagged correctly.”
Green Taxonomy