But neither the amounts nor the dates return. Why should the Commission have decided in July 2021 on an expenditure which the region would have requested reimbursement at the end of 2018? A clumsy attempt to unload today’s problems on past management? We have not received any response from the regional management authority, questioned by e-mail. While the spokesperson of the Commission replied: «It is not up to us to comment, confirm or deny press releases issued by other institutions. We can only give our position ». Which is as follows: ‘Based on the irregularities identified during the audit procedures, the Commission concluded that there was a risk that there was an irregular expenditure in the expenditure declared to the Commission on 8 June and 28 July 2021 and decided to stop the related payment requests “.
Nothing to do, therefore, with old annuities. In any case, “on 16 September the Italian authorities – explains Brussels – replied to the interruption letter and indicated the corrective measures implemented to address the problems identified by the auditors of the Commission” which is now “evaluating the adequacy of the corrective measures put in place. in place by the Italian authorities. If the assessment is satisfactory and the mitigation actions implemented are effective, the interruption of the reimbursement of payment requests will be revoked “. The affair, therefore, could end positively for the region within a few weeks.
Payments for the Campania ERDF Program have also been interrupted
But the Calabrian one is not the only program whose payments are blocked. There is also that of the Campania Regional Development Fund, whose payments have been stopped since 4 August, again following the results of an audit on the management and control system of the program, confirming how tight the verification system is spending of European funds.
In this case, the shortcomings identified by the Commission’s auditors mainly relate to the misuse of retroactive funding and the use of an irregular electronic platform to award public contracts. European sources interviewed said they were optimistic about a quick solution for the Campania program.
The clarifications of Spirlì and the Calabrian management authority
After the publication of the article, the region replied with a note from the Department to Planning, to “point out how the article is a harbinger of doubts that cannot exist after the clarifications, already made by the region, on the question relating to the temporary interruption of the payment of credits accrued on EU funds “.
“President, Nino Spirlì, and the managing authority, Maurizio Nicolai, reaffirm that the issues are exactly those reported in the previous note of the administration and that is that it is an irregularity on the controls of an expenditure of 30,657 euros incurred in 2016 and reported in the years 2017 and 2018 “.
“The commission’s audit was carried out after 24 months, as per regulation, that is in December 2020 – writes the regional planning department to answer the questions raised in the article – and the results were notified in the following year, that is the 2021. As is known, the doubts about the control system stop the disbursement of the credits accrued by the administration which are, in this case, those of the June and July reimbursement requests, but the irregularity is and remains the one subject to control, that is 30,657 euros. Just to mean that the news that 69 million euros are at risk is erroneous, as these are only the credits relating to the ESF not paid by the Commission but absolutely not at risk “.