Good governance and fighting misuse of public money in public procurement Bucharest, 7 September 2017 Inguna Kramiņa DG Regional and Urban Policy Unit "Competence Centre for Administrative Capacity Building; Solidarity Fund"

15 % of EU GDP channelled trough public procurement Cohesion policy and national co-financing as % of total public investment

Public Procurement Action Plan To coordinate actions more effectively, the ESIF DGs and DG GROW, together with the EIB elaborated Public Procurement Action Plan The 2nd revision was adopted in March 2017 The current update of the PP Action Plan contains 18 actions (14 + 4 follow-up actions) http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/informat/2014/action_plan_pp.pdf Focus on preventive actions! Spread knowledge of EU PP rules at the level of all stakeholders Reinforce administrative capacity Better preparation of tenders and projects Reduce error rate

Study on PP administrative capacity Overview of good practice and recommendations on public procurement to the EC and Member States Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_ policy/en/policy/how/improving-investment/ public-procurement/study/ Stages and outputs: Desk review of all 28 MS Field visits in 15 MS Case studies of reform: PT and CZ On-line survey with practitioners in all 28 MS Good practices and recommendations in final report (Part I) 28 Country profiles in Part II

Follow up Study: on Public Procurement good practice sharing across the EU Main deliverables: e-library of good practices; Feasibility studies for a selected number of good practices; Step-by-step roadmaps; Awareness raising. Stages and outputs: Desk review of all 28 MS Field visits in 15 MS Case studies of reform: PT and CZ On-line survey with practitioners in all 28 MS Good practices and recommendations in final report (Part I) 28 Country profiles in Part II

Public Procurement Guidance for Practitioners Guidance structured around the 6 main stages of a public procurement process based on list of 25 most common errors identified in audits Toolkit of resources addressing specific topics with concrete examples, checklist, links Updated version of the Guidance document is in preparation! (it will take into account new PP Directives)

ARACHNE Data-mining IT tool developed by EC and offered to Managing Authorities for free (1) Strengthens Management and Control Systems: allows for a continuous monitoring of internal and external data regarding projects, beneficiaries and contracts/contractors  Public procurement is one of the key areas monitored (2) Is expected to lead to lower error rates and number of fraud cases The Commission has developed a powerful IT data mining tool called ARACHNE and strongly encourages Member States to make use of it. This tool allows combining ESI Funds monitoring data with external databases (on companies, politically exposes persons, criminal records) and helps managing authorities to identify projects with higher risks which require a closer scrutiny. It allows Member States to carry out management verifications and audits in a more targeted and efficient way. It is a concrete tool and is offered to Member States free of charge. Public procurement is one of the key areas being monitored with a help of a range of indicators.

Integrity Pacts – pilot project Current status: 12 IPs signed; 2 IPs in preparation; 3 IPs delayed

What is an Integrity Pact? 2 key elements: (1) Agreement between Contracting Authority (beneficiary, project owner) and bidders to abstain from corrupt practices and conduct a transparent procurement (2) External independent Monitor – NGO – monitors that all parties comply with commitments a collaborative tool preventive flexible A tool developed during the 1990s by Transparency International and later OECD; Has been implemented around the world in more than 300 contracting processes; It is estimated that it could save up to 30% of a project costs

Key benefits of Integrity Pacts for Regional Policy Contributes to increased efficiency and effectiveness of public investments (Cohsion policy) Acts as preventive early warning system for irregularities Improves the communication between contractor, local stakeholders and general public Strengthens reputation of public body as reliable, transparent contracting authority Increase in trust Can lead to cost savings Can reduce the total implementation period

Taking forward integrity policy in PP: current work strands Single Market Strategy (SMS) Professionalization policy Country strategies for comprehensive reform of PP systems in selected MS Better data: (Reporting obligations under Art. 83 – 85) Improve data from procurement notices (eForms) Support collection of data below EU thresholds Contract registers EU database on irregularities Promote data analytics and analysis

Europe’s regional CRI map: Corruption Risk Index averages across the EU/EEA 2009-2014 TED data

Integrity Pacts project: Regio-E1-administrative-capacity@ec.europa.eu Inguna.Kramina@ec.europa.eu Public procurement on InfoRegio "Improving investment" http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/how/improving-investment/public-procurement/ Integrity Pacts project: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/how/improving-investment/integrity-pacts/