Interreg IPA Adrion

Interreg V B ADRION
Anti-Fraud Policy Statement

Introduction

The Managing Authority (hereinafter the MA) for Interreg VI B IPA Adriatic Ionian Programme (hereinafter IPA Adrion), following the beaten path of previous V B Adriatic Ionian (Adrion), keeps on committing to maintain high legal, ethical and moral standards, to adhere to the principles of integrity, objectivity and honesty and wishes to be seen as opposed to fraud and corruption in the way that it conducts its business.

To better get acquainted with the general policy of the programme, see Interreg VB Adrion 2014-2020 anti-fraud policy statement, which the present document intends to recall mutatis mutandis.

In particular, staff’s commitment and continuous training in supporting investigation and detection of fraud, corruption and conflict of interest are confirmed and duly taken into account by the IPA Adrion Managing Authority to ensure ad adequate management and monitoring in all the stages of projects’ selection and implementation.

Responsibilities

As to the accountability of Emilia-Romagn Region in its quality of Public Administration hosting IPA Adrion Managing Authority in the context of curruption prevention, the responsible manager is Maurizio Ricciardelli (head of the regional service Legal Affairs and State Aid within the Directorate headed by Francesco Raphael Frieri – manager pro tempore Adrion Managing Authority), as reported on the new Integrated Plan of the activities and organization 2023-2025 – PIAO – adopted on March 2023 and absorbing, among the other documents, the Three-year- Prevention and Corruption Plan

In particular, in the 2021-2027 programming period the obligation lying with IPA Adrion Managing Authority to put in place effective and proportionate anti-fraud measures and procedures, taking into account the risks identified, is set up by art. 74(1) (c) Reg. EU 2021/1060. The mentioned task is carried out following regular reviews, normally every year, and with the help of the fraud risk self-assessment Team (S.A.T), already active in the previous programming period. The outcomes of the SAT have shown that the current level of risk of fraudulent behaviours in the progamme implementation is being kept duly supervised and below the threshold of alert.

In its activity of ensuring a protection against fraud attempts, the MA will continue employing IT tools to detect risky operations, including the already consolidated ARACHNE, which will possibly be supplemented in the future by other more targeted platforms.

In accordance with Article 72(2) of Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 the adopted Interreg Programme has foreseen that the Managing Authority shall carry out the accounting functions too and consequently has set up a devoted Unit to this purpose (AFU – Accounting Function Unit)

The AFU employs the new version of electronic monitoring system (JEMS) which records and stores reliable information on each operation, helping the AFU officers to manage possible irregularities on the platform itself.

New 2021-2027 rules

With the approval of the new set of Regulations on Cohesion Policy, the principle of risk assessment has been strengthened.

According to recital (62) of Reg. (EU) 2021/1060, “to ensure an appropriate balance between the effective and efficient implementation of the Funds and the related administrative costs and burdens, the frequency, scope and coverage of management verifications should be based on a risk assessment that takes into account factors such as the number, type, size and content of operations implemented, the beneficiaries as well as the level of the risk identified by previous management verifications and audits. Management verifications should be proportionate to the risks resulting from that risk assessment, and audits should be proportionate to the level of risk to the budget of the Union.”

This suggests, a great change to the way management verifications were implemented in 2014-2020, pushing Managing Authorities to definitely get used to the risk-based approach.

The IPA Adrion Managing Authority will, in conclusion, carry out its duties being aware of the actual necessity to get a trade-off between two main purposes: on one side, the obligation to protect the financial interest of the Commission by preventing, detecting and prosecuting any fraudulent behaviour, and on the other side the use of a smoother process leading to spend as many resources as possible, granted by EC to the beneficiaries of the selected projects, and therefore to avoid underspending and decommitment.