Committee on Budgetary Control Ordinary meeting
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CONT European Parliament
Follow its sittingsIldikó Gáll-Pelcz
However, we identified three important weaknesses. First, fraud risk assessments are not always sufficiently robust and don't systematically consider all relevant information sources or emerging risks. Second, many actions included in the action plans are not ambitious enough or lack measurable objectives. Finally, monitoring and reporting focus mainly on whether activities have been completed rather than on whether they reduce fraud risk or improve performance.
In short, the framework exists, but it doesn't yet provide sufficient evidence that it delivers measurable results. Now to move to our recommendations. Based on these findings, we made four recommendations. We recommend strengthening governance and corporate oversight, improving fraud risk assessment, making action plans more ambitious and measurable, and focusing monitoring and reporting on results and impact. The implementation is expected between 2027 and 2028 in order to fit with OLAF's own report schedule and also to align with the outcome of the anti-fraud architecture working group review.
To conclude, our audit shows that the Commission has established a solid anti-fraud framework. The challenge now is not to create a completely new system, but to make the existing one more ambitious, more measurable, and more focused on achieving tangible results.
By implementing our recommendations, the Commission will be better equipped to protect the EU budget and strengthen public confidence in the sound financial management of Union funds. Thank you very much for your attention. If I may, Chair, I would like to take this opportunity to say that this is the last CONT meeting for our colleague Helena Piron, our main liaison officer with the Parliament, as she is retiring. I would like to thank her for all the dedication and hard work she has shown both at the Court and her work with the CONT committee throughout the many years I have known her. Thank you, Helena, and I wish you all the best for the future.
Andreas Schwab
Thank you so much, Ildikó, for your presentation, and thanks also to Helena for her commitment helping the European Court of Auditors always to have up-to-date information and concise and precise reports. We hope that you will have a very nice pension and you will enjoy looking back at what you have been able to achieve in the Court of Auditors.
Thank you so much, and now I would like to give the floor to Mr. James Sweeney from the European Commission.
James Sweeney
Thank you, honorable chair and honorable member of Parliament, dear colleagues from the Court and from the Parliament side. First of all, I want to thank you for this opportunity on behalf of OLAF and the Commission to address the Court of Auditors' report. I want to thank in particular Madame Gáll-Pelcz for and indeed all the members of her team in the constructive manner in which this work was carried out. I think it has led to a very useful report from our perspective, and indeed this report will feed into our future thinking and input for development of the next Commission anti-fraud strategy. But first allow me to just to highlight a couple of points in relation to the anti-fraud framework that the Commission has.
As you know, we have this corporate overall corporate CAFS, Commission anti-fraud strategy.
That's comprised of departmental-level anti-fraud strategies adopted by each Commission service and executive agency. I think it's important to make those points. And these are based on OLAF's methodology and following up on OLAF's expert advice on draft strategies, which is essentially a process of constant engagement with the services and agencies. And also since 2019, the Commission has clear anti-fraud governance arrangements and strong corporate oversight strengthened with the 2019 CAFS and the follow-up action plan. And we do, I mean, there are obviously some differences with the Court, and I'll go into them very briefly, but overall we take the view, and we thank that acknowledgement, that there is a good system in place, and it's a question of really working on the detail and dealing with any weaknesses that have been identified.
So first of all, I want to thank and acknowledge the positive acknowledgement of the CAFS's functioning by the ECA, which confirms that the CAFS is comprehensive and broadly follows best practice. We welcome that. Our CAFS is developed through a structured process of objectives addressing vulnerabilities and related risks, which are constantly under monitoring and review. The actions cover the anti-fraud full anti-fraud cycle. I mean, this is something that we share with the CONT Committee and others, that we address these matters through the full anti-fraud cycle.
And of course, how highlighting the importance of monitoring and reporting that they that they are adequate, that they are in place and that they actually do the job they're designed to do. So, and of course, we in OLAF stroke the Commission, we we identify areas where further improvements are needed. And whilst we did not agree with all of the Court's observations and conclusions, we and we agree that there is room for improvement in some parts, we we this is we have broadly accepted all of the ECA's recommendations. And now I will just turn briefly to how we have proposed to address each of the recommendations that were made by the ECA. As regards the strengthening of corporate oversight, we we would mention that the Commission already has clear anti-fraud governance in place.
The CAFS have strengthened that corporate oversight, the CAFS of 2019 with different measures, for example, the mandatory reviews of anti-fraud strategies by OLAF, this is of the services and the agencies, the annual discussion of anti-fraud matters by the Commission's Corporate Management Board, etc. Until now, our mandatory review of services have not identified any specific systemic issues that could be raised with the Management Corporate Management Board to date, but that may change, that that possibility is there, and we will we will mention some other initiatives in a short time. So we to further strengthen such corporate oversight, OLAF will, in response to the ECA's first recommendation, report to the Corporate Management Board strategically on important case recommendations that have not been followed or unresolved issues stemming from our review of service-level strategies, and we will do this on a case-by-case assessment. You you may have heard from me discussing in in other fora about what we have put in place about our case monitoring board as well with the central services of the Commission, and the cases that are dealt with there will feed into this system of more regular reporting to the Corporate Management Board, so I think that's an important point to make.
Turning to, as regards the corporate fraud risk assessment, we would say that it's built on a thorough and structured process. And we, to ensure this, we combine multiple information sources to identify potential risks effectively. This benefits from OLAF's ongoing analytical work, which is done for various different reasons within OLAF, not least the preparation of the PIF report, which I know this committee is very interested in as well. The insights we get from OLAF's investigations, our annual report, reports to the Parliament, and indeed thanks to yourselves here in the Parliament as well, the resolutions by the European Parliament on safeguarding the EU financial interest. To address the other recommendation on fraud risk assessments, and I can say on behalf of the OLAF, the Commission, we will further strengthen the way the departmental risks feed into the corporate risk assessment in a timely and consistent way.
And we have, and we're already discussed this in-house, to broaden the information, the external information sources in our future corporate risk assessments and where relevant, and we so decide, the departmental ones.
Now turning to the third ECA recommendations concerning the corporate service level action plans. Again, we would acknowledge that there may be some shortcomings, or that was certainly part of the interesting discussion that we had with the Court of Auditors on this, relating to progress measurement as well as and how to well define and track corporate actions. We would still be of the view that our CAFS strikes a good level of balance between ambition, incorporating forward-looking measures and to strengthen anti-fraud efforts. And again, we would say that some of our actions were, were requests to services and actions from them were of an exploratory nature to open up new avenues for anti-fraud action. This, we would also argue that this by definition does not mean that they were unambitious or easy to achieve.
But however, to implement the ECA's good recommendation, we will include in the future more measurable outcomes and interim milestones, if I can use that word in a positive way, for continuous actions.
And we will reduce the number of actions that include routine obligations and mandatory activities. We take good note of what the Court has said in that regard. The fourth and last ECA recommendation concerns monitoring and reporting. And those of you who have listened to me in the CONT committee before know that this is one of my private obsessions anyway. Monitoring and reporting is absolutely vital to measure what we have done with a view to getting good outcomes and making sure we know what to change going forward.
So we do acknowledge the importance of common outcome indicators for results monitoring. And in the context of the thinking which has already started on the future CAFS and adjustments to the future action plan related thereto, this is a very important part of that thinking. Currently, we report on the implementation of the CAFS action plan, but we will also report annually on progress to the achievement of the anti-fraud strategy objectives, including the identification and what we would propose to do in relation to areas of improvement. So that's the end of my intervention. Thank you very much.
Caterina Chinnici
Grazie, grazie anche a lei, dottor Sweeney. E grazie ancora alla dottoressa Heldigo, la chiamo così che è più semplice, la chiamiamo con il nome, è più facile per noi.
E grazie davvero per le vostre interessanti presentazioni che sono certa susciteranno tante domande da parte dei colleghi. Io vorrei ecco sottolineare come la strategia antifrode rappresenti davvero un tema di particolare importanza per la nostra commissione, per la commissione CONT, non soltanto perché è chiamata a fornire un contributo, diciamo, sostanziale agli sforzi della Commissione e delle agenzie esecutive per garantire l'esecuzione del bilancio nel rispetto dei principi di sana gestione finanziaria e della normativa finanziaria vigente, ma anche perché ha uno stretto collegamento con la revisione complessiva dell'architettura antifrode che costituisce parte integrante del pacchetto relativo al QFP post-2027.
Che il periodo che è stato preso in esame nell'audit precede l'annuncio da parte della Commissione della revisione dell'architettura antifrode e che quindi su alcuni temi affrontati nell'ambito della revisione non c'è stata, diciamo, una valutazione nella presente relazione speciale della Corte. Tuttavia, diciamo, la relazione, le conclusioni della relazione sono estremamente interessanti, come ho detto prima, anche se in una certa misura pongono qualche motivo di preoccupazione proprio alla luce anche di quanto ha detto lei, dottor Sweeney, del contesto che, se così possiamo dire, ahimè, è in continua evoluzione e quindi in questo contesto la strategia antifrode della Commissione ha un compito ancor più importante. Quindi, ecco, vi ringrazio davvero ancora molto per le vostre presentazioni e adesso abbiamo qui il collega Eriksson che è il relatore permanente per l'OLAF e quindi vorrei chiedere al collega Eriksson se vuole aprire, diciamo, il dibattito e se vuole intervenire, ha tre minuti di tempo. Prego.
Dick Erixon
Thank you very much. And thank you to the Court of Auditors for this clear and valuable report. The Commission has established a comprehensive anti-fraud framework, but too much of it remains procedural rather than operational. The Court found that more than 20% of corporate action and over half of departmental action were insufficiently ambitious.
Reporting still focus mainly on activities completed rather than fraud prevented, cases detected or money recovered. Unsolved OLAF recommendations are not systematically raised to higher level, while risk assessments are not keeping pace with emerging threats, including IT-enabled fraud. As standing rapporteur for the review of the EU anti-fraud architecture, I believe this distinction is essential. We must not create more architecture on paper while leaving weak follow-up within the Commission itself. Protecting the EU budget requires a different mindset.
Anti-fraud obligations cannot be treated as checkboxes. The real test is whether suspicious cases are referred rapidly, whether OLAF and the EPPO receive useful information, whether recommendations are implemented and whether every possible euro lost to fraud is recovered.
Therefore, I have two questions. First, how will the Commission ensure that the next anti-fraud strategy is developed in step with the forthcoming anti-fraud architecture legislation, rather than lagging behind by several years? And secondly, how systematically are OLAF's intervention-based financial recommendations followed up by the Commission's departments, and what concrete mechanism will ensure that recommendations for recovery results in an actual recoveries? Thank you.
Caterina Chinnici
Sì, grazie, grazie molto, onorevole Eriksson. E adesso, appunto, per continuare il nostro dibattito, vorrei passare la parola all'onorevole Zdzichowski, che è sempre anche lui molto attento e molto preciso su questi temi.
Tomáš Zdechovský
Thank you, Madam Chair. You are also very precise in this topics and you are very engaged in this topic for long times, thanks to your history and your father, what he did in Italy and how really he was fighting against corruption. I think you are symbol fighting against corruption and you are symbol for me and inspiration for this anti-fraud infrastructure and your family story. I would like thanks also the European Court of Auditors because I think that your report is really, and what you said, it's really very good base for discussion. And I have to say that I'm very, very satisfied what you present here because it will be inspiration for our INI report on anti-fraud infrastructure.
I have some question what are linked with OLAF recommendation by Commission.
Your report does not assess how the Commission follows up on OLAF's investigation-based financial, administrative, and disciplinary recommendation. In your view, as we consider it as a gap in the current anti-fraud framework, also my question is how should the future anti-fraud infrastructure strengthen the implementation and monitoring of these recommendations by Commission to better protect the EU budget? Is not the time to involve OLAF investigation to prosecution or be part for be a base for the prosecutors to start prosecuting these cases? And my second question is on effect quick recovery. European taxpayers do not judge our anti-fraud system by the number of the strategies or action plans.
They judge it by whether stolen money comes back or not. Therefore, recovery of EU funds should become the main performance indicator on the future anti-fraud infrastructure.
Also, my question is what key legislative changes are still needed to make this happen? Thank you very much for your response.
Caterina Chinnici
Grazie, grazie molte onorevole Zegowski per il suo intervento e per le sue parole che riconoscono un impegno che prima che mio è stato di mio padre, quindi grazie, grazie davvero per questo. Adesso continuiamo con i colleghi che hanno chiesto di intervenire, abbiamo l'onorevole Sanchez al quale do subito la parola. Prego.
Julien Sanchez
Bien merci Madame la Présidente, je suis très heureux moi aussi que vous présidiez cette séance puisque vous êtes particulièrement un symbole sur ce sujet et mon collègue a eu tout à fait raison de le rappeler et de le souligner. Je voudrais remercier les intervenants pour la présentation de ce rapport. Ayant été rapporteur fictif sur le rapport sur la protection des intérêts financiers, je reste très attentif à la protection effective des intérêts financiers de l'Union. Or l'audit nous alerte d'un décalage notable sur l'existence d'une stratégie anti-fraude apparemment exhaustive et sa capacité réelle à prévenir, à détecter et à corriger la fraude.
Vous constatez tout d'abord que la Commission n'a procédé à aucune analyse quantitative de la probabilité ni de l'impact des risques de fraude, faute de données et de capacités analytiques suffisantes. Vous soulignez également qu'elle ne s'appuie pas systématiquement sur une expertise externe et que les nouveaux risques liés à l'intelligence artificielle, à la fabrication de faux documents ou aux deepfakes ne sont pas suffisamment pris en compte, ce que notre groupe avait déjà relevé mais sans effet. Ensuite votre rapport est très clair, plus de 20 % des actions de la Commission et plus de la moitié des actions des services manquent d'ambition parce qu'elles consistent essentiellement à remplir des obligations administratives déjà existantes plutôt qu'à développer de nouvelles mesures de prévention ou de détection de la fraude. Vous expliquez que la Commission mesure surtout les actions réalisées mais pas leur impact. Autrement dit, elle sait dire ce qu'elle a fait mais beaucoup moins ce que ces actions ont réellement changé pour protéger le budget européen.
J'aurais donc trois questions. La première, vous indiquez que les risques liés à l'intelligence artificielle ne sont pas encore correctement intégrés dans l'évaluation des risques.
À votre avis, ce retard expose-t-il déjà le budget de l'Union à des vulnérabilités qui auraient pu être évitées ? Deuxième question, peut-on, et là c'est plutôt à la Commission, peut-on réellement parler de stratégie anti-fraude quand on sait dans le monde entier que nos frontières sont des passoires et que les contrôles, notamment dans les ports, sont défaillants voire inexistants ? Enfin, troisième question, pourquoi selon vous, et là ça s'adresse à la Cour des comptes, pourquoi l'Union européenne qui trouve beaucoup d'argent pour certaines dépenses, notamment pour l'Ukraine, qui envisage de créer de nouvelles taxes avec les nouvelles ressources propres, pourquoi l'Union européenne ne met pas les moyens nécessaires, les moyens humains nécessaires pour lutter contre la fraude ? Je crois que c'est important, on aurait un bon retour sur investissement en mettant des moyens humains sur cette lutte contre la fraude qui est un combat très important. Enfin, je m'étonne que nos collègues de gauche soient tous absents pour ce débat et que nous n'ayons que les groupes de la droite et du centre représentés à cette séance.
Merci.
Caterina Chinnici
Grazie, grazie molte anche a lei per il suo intervento così completo, onorevole Sanchez, grazie davvero. E passo la parola al collega Boyer che anche lui sono sicura farà un intervento di sostanza su questo tema che interessa, ripeto, tutti quanti noi, ci interessa davvero. Prego, a lei la parola onorevole Boyer.
Speaker 9
Merci Madame la Présidente, je m'associe évidemment à l'hommage qui vous a été rendu ainsi qu'à votre père, nous en avons déjà parlé ensemble.
En effet, merci pour ces conclusions. C'est notre mission collective d'améliorer notre ce que nous appelons notre architecture anti-fraude. J'ai coutume de dire que notre architecture a oublié les fondations puisque les différentes briques de la coopération anti-fraude se sont bâties progressivement au fil du temps. Les institutions se rajoutent les unes aux autres et que nous avons parfois manqué de cohérence au moment de construire notre dispositif et qu'il est désormais nous avons désormais une occasion de faire nous Parlement ici une proposition pour y remédier. Que nous ne pouvons pas tolérer que les institutions qui sont en charge de la lutte anti-fraude se fassent compétition entre elles parce qu'évidemment ça ne peut se faire qu'au détriment de notre cause commune qui est la bonne gestion de l'argent public européen et le devoir que nous avons ensemble de rendre compte aux contribuables aux contribuables européens.
Et je crois que c'est un facteur d'amélioration qui est tout à fait décisif et sur lequel nous serons jugés. Je voudrais aussi rendre hommage à l'action du Parquet européen qui en quelques années a su s'imposer dans cette dans cette organisation, démontrer son efficacité et démontrer aussi sa détermination à lutter contre les fraudes les plus évidentes et les plus lourdes de conséquences pour notre budget européen, je pense en particulier à la fraude à la TVA. Donc merci pour ce merci pour ces conclusions qui vont beaucoup nous aider à la fois dans la rédaction de nos rapports sur la protection des intérêts financiers de l'Union, notre rapport annuel, que l'on Sanchez en a rappelé l'existence et l'importance et j'étais moi-même rapporteur l'an passé, et aussi nous permettre de proposer une nouvelle organisation optimisée pour pouvoir mettre des résultats à l'appui de notre détermination. Merci.
Caterina Chinnici
Grazie, grazie anche a lei onorevole Boyer per il suo intervento e per le sue parole anche nei miei confronti e nei confronti di mio padre Rocco Chinnici.
Io voglio ringraziare davvero tutti i colleghi, credo che i loro interventi abbiano dimostrato l'interesse che c'è e vorrei semplicemente aggiungere anche una mia considerazione su un tema che già è stato toccato dai colleghi che mi hanno preceduto ed è, ecco, la valutazione, la considerazione del rischio derivante dall'utilizzo dell'intelligenza artificiale. Purtroppo l'esperienza accumulata nel mio paese e anche nel mio lavoro ci ha dimostrato come le organizzazioni criminali, e queste che gestiscono purtroppo le frodi transfrontaliere sono quasi sempre organizzazioni criminali, usano molto bene con disinvoltura e con tempi molto veloci le innovazioni tecnologiche. Quindi l'intelligenza artificiale è già un domani ma è già presente. E allora ecco, proprio per evitare poi di rincorrere o di frazionare gli interventi nel tempo, vorrei chiedere ecco una valutazione su questo aspetto, cioè la considerazione del rischio derivante dall'utilizzo dell'intelligenza artificiale. Abbiamo fatto una valutazione su questo, la stiamo facendo, come possiamo ecco inserirla in una valutazione completa del rischio per quanto riguarda appunto le frodi.
Quindi fatta questa breve aggiunta, questa breve mia considerazione domanda a quelle già fatte dai colleghi, io restituisco la parola ai nostri ospiti nello stesso ordine in cui abbiamo iniziato, quindi do subito la parola per le sue risposte, le sue repliche alla dottoressa Gal-Pelcz Hidalgo.
Ildikó Gáll-Pelcz
Thank you, thank you chair. First of all I would like to thank Tomas' very kind work, very kind thought and to answer his question. The issue as I already mentioned and started my presentation is not the absence of a strategy but weakness its implementation. Fraud risk evolve rapidly and anti-fraud strategy must therefore be dynamic and consistently implemented across all Commission department if it is to remain effective. So the challenges in the implementation.
Fraud risk evolve over time and the Commission strategic management needs to evolve with them.
The Commission strategy should therefore be seen as a living framework that needs to be regularly updated rather than fundamentally replaced. And as regard citizen trust, protecting the EU budget is not only about preventing financial losses. It's also about maintain citizen confidence that public funds are managed responsibility. Our audit found that the Commission has established the essential element of an anti-fraud framework, strengthening its implementation through better risk assessment, stronger governance and more up-to-date departmental strategic as we suggested in our recommendation will help reinforce public trust in the Commission's stewardship of the EU budget. And the next question was Julien, defense security and support for Ukraine.
The changing geopolitical environment reinforces the importance of effective fraud risk management.
I am sure that we can agree on it. Our audit didn't examine specified policy areas such as defense or support for Ukraine and others. However, whenever significant new funding instruments are introduced or existing programs evolve, fraud risk may also change. So this is the statement. One of our key findings is precisely that fraud risk assessment should be systemic, regularly updated, and capable of adapting to new circumstances.
And Caterina, Madam Chair, asked about artificial intelligence. I would like to say that our audit didn't specifically assess the Commission's use of artificial intelligence. However, we observe more generally that fraud schemes are becoming increasingly sophisticated and that fraud risk assessment need to evolve accordingly. So ultimately, whatever technologies are used, the Commission needs a sound understanding of fraud risk, effective governance, and appropriate allocation of anti-fraud resources.
And a few words about cybersecurity as well. While cybersecurity and foreign interference were outside the scope of our audit, they illustrate again why anti-fraud strategy cannot remain static. They need to evolve continuously as the threat landscape changes. So thank you for your attention.
Caterina Chinnici
Grazie molte, dottoressa Gal-Pelcz, per le sue risposte. E adesso passo la parola sempre, diciamo, per quattro minuti al dottor Sweeney per le sue considerazioni e le sue risposte. Prego.
James Sweeney
Yeah, thank you very much, Madam Chair. Yeah, I'll try to deal with all the questions as raised in order. From the OLAF or Commission side, to Mr. Eriksson's questions on point about a certain percentage of the actions being insufficiently ambitious.
As I said earlier, we've taken note of that. We understand the point of view of the Court of Auditors on it, and let's say it is something that will be corrected in the next one in terms of precision and indeed the level of ambition. Some of my colleagues would in the Commission or indeed within OLAF would say they're already sufficiently ambitious, but you have to strike the right balance on this. As regards the question of unresolved OLAF recommendations, I think it was explained in other fora, but I can explain it again that the Commission has already taken action on this. We will, two ways we explain this is a decision within the Commission to raise very much more regularly with the Corporate Management Board those issues of those important cases that have to take a long time to resolve when recommendations are made to Commission services or to Member States or Commission services, agencies or Member States.
The monitoring forum, which is made up of the central services of the Commission, the Secretariat-General, the DG Budget, the Legal Service and OLAF, have already the first round of meetings of these, so that was put in place specifically to address this question of unresolved recommendations.
More generally then on AI, the risks of AI. And we all accept that what was it, the 30th of November 2022, ChatGPT was foisted on the world and the whole thing has changed dramatically since then in terms of the development of the fraud landscape. And OLAF and the Commission is acutely aware of that. The thinking that we are doing these days to prepare for the next anti-fraud strategy and the next action plan very much takes that on board. But without, and this is in addressing the other questions that were raised by your good colleagues and including you, Madam Chair, on the use of AI, we would point to in OLAF's responses that we in Action 9 and Action 12, we do address very specifically the need of the Commission services and agencies and other recipients to address, take more use of new technologies, and we'd extend that to include AI.
And also from an OLAF perspective, in recent years, over the last three years, OLAF has put a dedicated team in place to look at AI, look at the use of AI tools in investigations, look at the use of AI in our analysis, and we're making significant progress in that regard. And I'm not at liberty to say exactly what we're doing for obvious investigative operational reasons, but suffice to say that anybody, and indeed the good Court of Auditors or others, will be looking at this in the future and they'll see exactly what we're doing in that regard. Going back to my questions as in order of receipt. Yes, in relation to the good points raised by MEP Safkoski, thank you very much. All I can say on this one is that the PIF report, which will be made available, the next PIF report, which is due here to be addressed to the Parliament by the end of this month, the PIF report for 2025 will indeed include a lot, lot more granular detail on the actions that have been taken in follow-up to OLAF recommendations.
It will show details on recoveries, very much in accordance with addressing and preparing the report in accordance with the whole anti-fraud cycle, which includes recoveries at the end. And again, as we have already done in the annual report, it will show that for the period 2014 to 2024, over that 10-year period, of the 8 billion that OLAF recommended for recovery, over 6.5 billion has already been identified as and confirmed to be protected, recovered stroke protected, protected being attempts at irregular funding have been blocked before the payments have even been made. Turning then to the points made by our good colleague, Mr. Sanchez, former rapporteur with us on certain actions in OLAF, again, I would repeat what I said about Action 9 and Action 12 of the Commission's anti-fraud strategy, which talks about new technologies. New technology really now is AI, and I won't repeat what I've already said.
OLAF acknowledges how important this is. This is part of our central messaging to the Commission services and agencies and it will very much feature in the next iteration of the Commission's anti-fraud strategies, which my dear colleagues assure me they're already working on for next year. And again, I would absolutely acknowledge that you make a particular point about the Ukraine funding instrument, but all new funding instruments, as my good colleague from the Court of Auditors said, has to be taken into account fraud risk, risk assessed and to take and they're all part of the new anti-fraud view of things. I'll talk in a moment about the whole anti-fraud architecture review, but these are things that are very much at the center of our messages to Commission services going forward. Mr. Boyer, again turning to Mr. Boyer's comments on relation to the AFAR review, I think as you know, this is ongoing work.
The Commission will be delivering a communication on this in the last quarter of this year.
We absolutely take on board OLAF and the Commission, well we as OLAF as an independent AFAR actor and we as OLAF as the lead service on anti-fraud actions are very much part of that. Everything that the Court of Auditor has sent to us, including in particular Court of Auditor report 26 of 2025 on the fraud audit, the anti-fraud bodies, and this very important audit on the Commission's anti-fraud strategies are absolutely taken into account in that review, and that's ongoing review. And again, last but not least again, Madam Chair, OLAF again because we have such a worldwide reach on matters which extends obviously the revenue side of the budget with customs in particular are fully and acutely aware and we already see the developments and use of AI in customs fraud, in VAT fraud. On the expenditure side, we mentioned even in our previous discussions with the Court of Auditors on the CAFS, you know, the multiple applications, generation by AI of multiple double funding becomes a serious issue, applications for double funding. And this is something that we have to bear in mind as we look at the future anti-fraud elements of and control systems that has to be put in place for the future multi-annual financial framework.
So, I'll leave it at that unless there are any follow-up questions. Thank you very much.
Caterina Chinnici
Sì, grazie, grazie, dottor Swinney. Io non so se ci sono altre domande da parte dei colleghi, altrimenti passerei così per una breve osservazione conclusiva la parola al collega Eriksson. Prego.
Dick Erixon
Yes, I only want to emphasize how important this topic is for the taxpayers. Value of money is extremely important and we must come more to evaluate the value of the money spent and not only the procedures. That's very important and I see that progress is made and I hope we'll do even better. Thank you.
Caterina Chinnici
Bene, grazie.
Io davvero voglio ringraziare tutti i colleghi che hanno preso parte davvero a questo interessante scambio di vedute. Voglio ringraziare i nostri ospiti e il relatore e sottolineare come è stato appena proprio sottolineato già dal dottor Sweeney, quello che è necessario è un approccio globale e complessivo al tema dell'antifrode per difendere, come ben ha detto il collega Eriksson, gli interessi finanziari dell'Unione, quindi il denaro dei nostri cittadini e acquisire e continuare a mantenere quella fiducia che le istituzioni devono avere da parte dei cittadini. Quindi grazie davvero a voi tutti per questo prezioso dibattito che abbiamo tenuto. E diciamo per completezza di informazione voglio dire che la Commissione dovrebbe adottare una comunicazione sulla revisione dell'architettura antifrode nel dicembre del 2026, alla quale sono certa che tutti lavoreremo con grande impegno. Quindi grazie ancora e diciamo concludiamo quindi questo punto all'ordine del giorno.
Sospendiamo cinque minuti prima del prossimo punto che sarà in camera. Grazie a tutti voi. Grazie.
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