Technical assistance could be used better in agriculture and rural development
A report published today by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) finds that neither the European Commission nor the Member States of the European Union are able to demonstrate how well the use of technical assistance in agriculture and rural development policy has contributed to budgetary efficiency and to the objectives of the common agricultural policy.
Technical assistance (TA) relates to the provision of specific expertise and funding to support government departments with the objective of developing administrative capacity and the costs associated therewith. While administrative costs may be covered, TA funding should not be seen as a substitute for spending on administration if it does not bring with it that additional capacity-building.
In the audited area, Member States were entitled to use TA funding from the EU budget, for certain broadly defined activities, up to a ceiling of 4% of the national rural development envelope. For the 2007-2013 period, the Member States planned to use €1.5 billion in this way. For the new programme period (2014-2020), that figure has increased to around €1.9 billion.
The EU auditors found that the financing of rural networking activities offered the best potential for acceptable TA use in the rural development budget. Rural networks, which aim to increase cooperation, knowledge-sharing and innovation in the agricultural sector, are a very suitable vehicle for TA.
However, in most of TA spending, resources intended for capacity-building have often been used to shore up general administrative budgets. TA funding has helped Member States to cover their payroll needs in rural development at a time when administrative budgets have been squeezed throughout Europe. A similar tendency was observed at the Commission itself, which also has an internal TA budget. Both in the Member States and at the Commission, EU auditors found that a number of activities chargeable to regular administrative expenditure were actually funded as TA.
While the legislation does not explicitly prohibit using TA in this way, the ECA considers that spending money on national administrative payroll and other day-to-day running costs does not constitute the best possible use of TA funding. “Crucially, this money could otherwise have been used for rural development projects on the ground, so there is clearly an opportunity cost of excessive TA use - less real investment in the agriculture sector,” commented Kersti Kaljulaid, the ECA Member responsible for the report.
Press Release: Technical assistance could be used better in agriculture and rural development, say EU auditors
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