CONT: The committee protecting taxpayers' money and a ‘vigilant defender’ of the rule of law

EUobserver takes a deep dive into the workings and new chairs of every single European Parliament committee for the new 2024-2029 session, in a series of articles first published in our print magazine of October 2024

As discussions on the next EU budget begin to take shape, and lessons are learned from the implementation of the Covid-19 recovery funds and the use of the conditionality mechanism, the budget control committee (CONT) will continue playing a key role in ensuring accountability, transparency, and the responsible use of EU funds, while upholding the rule of law and combating corruption across member states.

Centre-right German MEP Niclas Herbst of the European People’s Party, who chairs the committee, is fully aware of the immense challenges ahead. This includes their typical annual discharge exercise, a thorough assessment of EU budget implementation by the European Commission, and oversight of the EU's anti-fraud landscape.

“The fight against fraud is always a top priority,” Herbst said, referring to the work the committee does together with the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), the EU's anti-fraud agency Olaf and the European Court of Auditors.

Arguing that the power of the CONT committee (which brought down the Santer Commission in 1999) shouldn’t be underestimated, the 51-year-old MEP also said that the committee will continue to exercise the enforcement of the rule of law together with the budget committee.

“Our joint monitoring work enables the European Parliament to exert its scrutiny role, and to act as a vigilant defender of the rule of law when breaches of this principle risk affecting the EU budget,” he said.

The first point in the committee’s agenda, he said, is the protection of the financial interests of the EU. “It’s about taxpayers’ money,” he told EUobserver.

“Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of EU spending must help build public trust in the European project,” he added, arguing that his committee will work to improve transparency and control on the final recipients of EU funds. 

“It cannot be accepted that the commission is not able to provide information on the real beneficiaries, who ultimately benefit from EU funds,” he said.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) — the largest component of the main pandemic recovery instrument to raise up to €800bn until 2026 (the Next Generation EU) — includes information on the 100 biggest recipients of RRF funds in the different member states. In the Ukraine Facility and the Western Balkans Facility, this explicitly includes contractors and sub-contractors. However, according to Herbst, “much more needs to be done to improve transparency.”

As committee chair, he expected to face “more decisive, than divisive, elements” in the committee work. But Herbst admitted that one of the key points in the agenda which could trigger conflict among the political groups could be the future design of performance-based instruments, such as the RRF which is based on milestones and targets for investments and reforms.  “[These programmes] should be better designed and controlled than was the case under the time pressure, and suffering, of the pandemic,” he said.

For the next legislative term, the German conservative also said that the CONT committee work would focus on the implementation of the European Parliament 2024 reform, with a more effective approach to budget, discharge and legislation.

“This reform enables us to focus on the biggest spending areas and to efficiently use our own resources to fulfil our mandate to protect the EU's financial interests,” he said.

The CONT coordinators are: Tomáš Zdechovský (EPP, Czech Republic), Carla Tavares (S&D, Portugal), Tamás Deutsch (PfE, Hungary), Joachim Stanisław Brudziński (ECR, Poland), Olivier Chastel (Renew, Belgium), Daniel Freund (Greens, Germany), Jonas Sjöstedt (The Left, Sweden) and Alexander Jungbluth (ESN, Germany).