On discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2023, Section III - Commission…, executive agencies and the ninth, tenth and eleventh European Development Funds

The Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following into its proposal for a decision:

1.Is satisfied with the Commission's overall implementation of the budget in the areas of environment, climate action, public health and food safety in 2023;

2.Is satisfied with the work carried out by the five decentralised agencies under its remit, which perform technical, scientific or managerial tasks that support Union institutions in developing and implementing policies in the area of environment, climate action, public health and food safety, as well as with the way in which those agencies' budgets are implemented; stresses the need to ensure funding and staffing for the agencies and the Commission Directorates-General, given the growing scope of their responsibilities; highlights the value of exploring innovative funding mechanisms for the agencies, such as collaborative co-financing arrangements, and that these new funds could complement and enhance existing budgets;

Environment and Climate Action

3.Recognises that in 2023 about EUR 160 billion, approximately 38% of the Union budget, based on commitment appropriations, was dedicated to climate mainstreaming objectives, in line with the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making plans for at least 30 % of 2021-27 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to be used for this purpose; notes that the largest contributions to those spendings come from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and from cohesion policy programmes; notes that the Innovation Fund provided an additional EUR 6,5 billion in grants for projects advancing innovative low-carbon technologies;

4.Notes that the largest contribution to the climate-relevant spending in 2023 came from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF); highlights that the delivery model of the RRF constitutes a significant change of EU financing in so far as the disbursement of funds is based on the fulfilment of targets and milestones and not linked to costs; in this context, is concerned about the Court of Auditors’(the ‘Court’) annual report for 2023 which, similar to previous years findings, states weaknesses in the design of measures and cases of vaguely defined milestones and targets, weaknesses in the Member States’ reporting and control systems and problems with the reliability of information that Member States included in their management declaration; also notes with concern the Court’s Special Report No 14/2024 that finds multiple shortcomings of the RRF framework and the national recovery and resilience plans as well as inconsistencies in the implementation of measures which call into question the achievement of its climate and environmental objectives, and that concludes that the contribution of the RRF to the green transition does not fulfil the intended objectives, particularly in the field of industrial decarbonisation;

5.Emphasises that the climate and environmental objectives are an integral part of the RRF framework and national recovery and resilience plans and that spending and implementation must be aligned with, and contribute to, the fulfilment of the objectives of the green transition; expresses concern about the findings in the Court's Special Report No 14/2024 that a significant share of the audited measures in the national recovery and resilience plans did not have entirely justified climate coefficients, resulting in the likely overestimation of at least €430 million; agrees with the ECA's assessment that the Commission should have spotted these inconsistencies when assessing the plans;

6.Stresses, in addition, the recommendations made by the Court of Auditors in its special report 15/2024 on climate adaptation in the EU; deplores the fact that more than a third of adaptation projects audited had little or no impact on increasing adaptive capacity, including projects on promoting large scale irrigation instead of switching to less water-intensive crops, constructing dykes and investing in artificial snow cannons; calls on the Commission in this regard to ensure that all relevant EU-funded projects are adapted to the current and future climate conditions, strengthening promotion of long-term cross-cutting and effective solutions for climate adaptation;

7.Regrets the findings of the Court’s Special Report No 26/2023 regarding the performance monitoring of the RRF, which finds that milestones and targets vary in ambition and largely focus on outputs rather than results, that the common indicators used to monitor and report progress towards the RRF’s objectives do not cover all aspects of the RRF’s performance, and that reported data is limited and may not be reliable; furthermore, is concerned by the findings of the Court's Special Report No 14/2024 that the indicators used to monitor the performance towards the green transition are not designed to eventually track impacts for the performance of individual measures in terms of climate and environmental action and that, due to their limitations, the indicators cannot be used to assess the extent to which RRF climate-related measures are contributing to climate action;

8.Notes the findings of the Court’s Special report 13/2024 regarding the number of payment requests submitted and the limited funds of the RRF disbursed by the Commission to Member States and regrets the important gap between Member States in the administrative capacities to ensure absorption and implementation progress of that facility; recognises nevertheless the benefits of RRF pre-financing to facilitate the deployment of climate mitigation projects on the ground and for providing funding certainty to final recipients; acknowledges the responsibility for ensuring sufficient administrative capacity lies ultimately with each Member State;

9.Underlines the importance of proper scrutiny of climate expenditure in the Union budget, and holds the Commission accountable for the implementation of a robust and reliable methodology, in line with the commitments undertaken in the MFF agreement and paragraph 16d of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 16 December 2020 between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission on budgetary discipline, on cooperation in budgetary matters and on sound financial management, as well as on new own resources, including a roadmap towards the introduction of new own resources; calls on the Commission to follow the Court’s recommendations in the relevant reports to better estimate climate spending under future funding instruments, to ensure adequate design of future funding instruments that are to support the climate and environmental objectives and targets, to enhance the performance of green transition measures and to ensure comprehensive, consistent, reliable and transparent reporting on climate spending under the RRF;

10.Reiterates its concern that the significant risks to the security and protection of the registry and operating mechanism of the Union system for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading against cyberattacks have still not been adequately addressed; points out that this issue has been highlighted in the Annual Activity Reports (AARs) since 2010, with reservations raised in each report; notes that this concern is once again emphasised in the Directorate-General for Climate Action’s 2023 AAR, further underscoring the persistent failure to prioritise the security of the system;

11.Notes that about EUR 20 billion, approximately 5% of the Union budget, was dedicated to the biodiversity mainstreaming objective, under various programmes e.g. the CAP, the RRF, cohesion policy programmes and the LIFE programme; urges the Commission to maintain its efforts to meet the targets for biodiversity mainstreaming of 7.5% for 2024 and 10% for 2026 and 2027 in particular following the revision of the CAP earlier this year ; welcomes the update to the biodiversity tracking methodology for expenditures under the CAP, but stresses that the Commission must take further action across all relevant programmes to ensure clear and transparent reporting on how these funds are delivering concrete and measurable biodiversity improvements;

Public health

12.Recalls the EU4Health programme's transformative role in supporting public health policy objectives of the Union; regrets that the EU4Health programme suffered disproportionate cuts in 2023 of EUR 1 billion and that future public health actions in the Union will have to be downsized and the spending profile amended despite their importance for Union citizens; recalls the importance of the public health policies and the clear political commitment in the 2020 MFF agreement to prioritise health funding;

13.Notes that in 2023, the budget of the EU4Health programme, the main financial instrument to support Union health initiatives, was EUR 735 million, mainly managed by Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety and the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) and implemented through the European Health and Digital Executive Agency; acknowledges the progress of initiatives funded under this programme, notably in the areas of health emergency preparedness, the Beating Cancer Plan, the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe and in the implementation of Union health legislation;

14.Notes that HERA, established in 2021, has continued in 2023 to grow the number of its staff and to expand its operations; welcomes the progress of HERA’s efforts in ensuring the Union’s preparedness and crisis response readiness for health emergencies as well as its involvement in collaborations with international partners to increase global preparedness, prevention and detection of health emergencies;

15.Recalls the Commission’s commitment to carry out a thorough review of the implementation of HERA’s operations by 2025 and to consider changing its structure and governance, including in order to transform it into a genuine agency with an autonomous budget;

16.Regrets the findings of the Court's Special Report No 26/2023 that several policy areas in the RRF's pillar containing health policies lack a corresponding common indicator to measure progress; is concerned that this impedes the proper monitoring and understanding of progress made towards achieving milestones and targets linked to health policies;

17.Calls on the Commission to take corrective action addressing the shortcomings identified by the European Court of Auditors and the concerns expressed by the European Parliament;

18.Is of the opinion, on the basis of the data and reports available, that discharge can be granted to the Commission in respect of expenditure in the areas of environment, climate action, public health and food safety for the financial year 2023.