Yesterday, the organisation fishsubsidy.org published their report “Eyes Wide Shut” on the allocation and mismanagement of subsidies from the EU Fisheries Fund (EFF) since 2007. Along with the report, a database piecing together EFF funding has been launched, detailing 47,712 payments worth €1.17 billion since 2007.
The central theme of the report is to highlight how data poor subsidy allocation in the EU has become, and the role that the Commission has played in presiding over this opaque system.
Since 2007, when the Commission handed the over responsibility of data collection to Member States, the quality of information on subsidies has declined further. Subsequently, data has been made indecipherable as it is scattered in a number of formats, while national co-financing schemes have been conflated with EU funding.
Several Member States have failed to record payments adequately; most notably Greece and Portugal who have not published any data on EFF payments for the past five years, despite having spent public funds.
The report includes a transparency ranking for each Member State, for which Sweden is ranked in first place. However, several large beneficiaries such as Spain, Denmark and France all received low scores as they had not recorded payments accurately. These failings led to the report concluding that “the system for achieving financial transparency in the EFF is a mess”.
In order to resolve these failings, fishsubsidy.org recommends that “end beneficiaries”, the vessel (with fleet registration number) that receives funding is recorded and made publically available. Along with, the amount of EU and national funds allocated and paid, as well as the location of the vessel and the date of payment. By standardising the method in which payments are recorded and Member States fulfilling their obligations, the Commission would better be able to evaluate overcapacity in the EU fleet and better be able to direct subsidies appropriately.
The status quo has failed to ensure that Member States meet their obligations to record the money trail that comes from the public purse. Moreover, the lack of transparency in subsidy allocation means that guesswork is required to know how much money has been spent and who has received funds. This situation is unacceptable and the Commission needs to reform the system so that public funds are given out with accountability.