Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/1291 of 16 May 2018 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) No 1042/2014 supplementing Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to the designation and management and control responsibilities of Responsible Authorities and with regard to status and obligations of Audit Authorities

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 laying down general provisions on the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and on the instrument for financial support for police cooperation, preventing and combating crime, and crisis management (1), and in particular Articles 26(4) and 29(1) thereof,

Whereas:

(1) In order to provide legal certainty it is necessary to clarify that a Delegated Authority may also act as an executing body. In this case, the Audit Authority shall function independently from the Delegated Authority, including when the latter acts as executing body.

(2) The first clearance of accounts exercises carried out pursuant to Article 1 of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/378 (2) highlighted the need to provide clarity on the scope of system audits to be conducted by the Audit Authority and to align this Regulation with the key requirements set out in Annex to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/378. By clarifying the scope of system audits, the main types of deficiencies should be established and the corresponding level of financial corrections due to system deficiencies should be determined and applied in a consistent and comparable manner by Member States.

(3) In order to bring Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 1042/2014 (3) in line with Article 29 of Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 and with Article 59(5) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council (4) it is necessary to include a reference to the obligation on the Audit Authority to perform audits on expenditure.

(4) For the purpose of the audits of expenditure it is necessary to define that the auditable population should include financial data representing payments made by the Responsible Authority throughout a financial year, as well as, for the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, the number of persons relocated, resettled, transferred and legally admitted.

(5) To ensure that the scope and effectiveness of audits on expenditure are adequate and carried out to the same standards by all the Audit Authorities, it is necessary to set out the minimum requirements for sampling, which an Audit Authority should observe in establishing or approving the sampling method.

(6) Pursuant to Article 30 of Regulation (EU) No 514/2014, for the purpose of reporting of audit results to the Commission it is necessary to present the model for the annual control report, which sets out the audit information and data to be provided each year to support the Audit Authority's opinions submitted with the accounts. This annual control report should be sent to the Commission via the electronic data exchange system referred to in Article 2 of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 802/2014 (5) (‘SFC2014’) and, in particular, via the module for national auditors and audit services of the Commission,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Delegated Regulation (EU) No 1042/2014 is amended as follow:

(1) in paragraph 1 of Article 5, the following second subparagraph is added: ‘Where authorised by the Responsible Authority, the Delegated Authority may act as executing body as referred to in Article 8.’;

(4) a new Annex II is added to this Regulation.

Article 2

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in the Member States in accordance with the Treaties.

Done at Brussels, 16 May 2018.

For the Commission The President Jean-Claude JUNCKER

(1) OJ L 150, 20.5.2014, p. 112.

(2) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/378 of 2 March 2015 laying down rules for the application of Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to the implementation of the annual clearance of accounts procedure and the implementation of the conformity clearance (OJ L 64, 7.3.2015, p. 30).

(3) Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 1042/2014 of 25 July 2014 supplementing Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 with regard to the designation and management and control responsibilities of Responsible Authorities and with regard to status and obligations of Audit Authorities (OJ L 289, 3.10.2014, p. 3).

(4) Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union and repealing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 (OJ L 298, 26.10.2012, p. 1).

(5) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 802/2014 of 24 July 2014 establishing models for national programmes and establishing the terms and conditions of the electronic data exchange system between the Commission and Member States pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down general provisions on the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and on the instrument for financial support for police cooperation, prevention and combating crime and crisis management (OJ L 219, 25.7.2014, p. 22).