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EN
2015

NO 17

Special Report

Commission’s support
of youth action teams:
redirection of ESF funding
achieved, but insufficient
focus on results

(pursuant to Article 287(4), second subparagraph, TFEU)

Audit team

The ECA’s special reports set out the results of its performance and compliance audits of specific budgetary areas or management topics. The ECA selects and designs these audit tasks to be of maximum impact by considering the risks to performance or compliance, the level of income or spending involved, forthcoming developments and political and public interest.

This performance audit was produced by Audit Chamber II — headed by ECA Member Henri Grethen — which specialises in structural policies, transport and energy spending areas. The audit was led by ECA Member Iliana Ivanova, supported by the head of her private office, Tony Murphy, Mihail Stefanov, attaché, and Peter Borsos, assistant; Emmanuel Rauch, head of unit; Valeria Rota, team leader; and Luis De La Fuente Layos, Zhivka Kalaydzhieva and Anna Fiteni, auditors.

From left to right: Z. Kalaydzhieva, M. Stefanov, E. Rauch, I. Ivanova, T. Murphy, L. De La Fuente Layos and P. Borsos.

Contents

Glossary

Executive summary

Introduction

EU efforts to tackle youth unemployment

The EU’s role in youth employment policy

Youth action teams

European Social Fund: situation prior to the 2012/2013 redirection exercise

Results of the youth action teams initiative as reported by the Commission

Audit scope and approach

Observations

Assessment of the effectiveness of the Commission’s advisory role

Available ESF performance and financial information limited the effectiveness of the Commission’s advisory role to youth action teams

The Commission’s preparatory activities resulted in generic ‘country fiches’

Outcome of the youth action teams initiative

Youth action teams meetings provided proposals for ESF reprogramming and reallocation in general terms

Youth action teams led to reprogramming and/or reallocation of ESF funds but providing an overall figure is difficult

The Commission’s assessment of the ESF OP amendments proposed by the Member States focused mainly on budgetary aspects

Youth action plans prepared with different levels of detail and limited reference to youth action teams in the national reform programmes

The Commission’s monitoring and reporting on the results of the youth action teams initiative

The Commission’s follow-up of the results of the youth action teams initiative was on the basis of the existing ESF monitoring arrangements

Shortcomings in the Commission’s reporting on results of the youth action teams initiative

Conclusions and recommendations

Reply of the Commission

Glossary

Europe 2020 strategy: The European Union’s 10-year jobs and growth strategy. It was launched in 2010 to create the conditions for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

European employment strategy: The European employment strategy was introduced in 1992 by the Treaty of the European Union and since then has been the cornerstone of the EU’s employment policy. Its main aim is the creation of more and better jobs throughout the EU. It now constitutes part of the Europe 2020 strategy and it is implemented through the European Semester.

European Semester: The European Semester is the first phase of the EU’s annual cycle of economic policy guidance and surveillance. Each European Semester, the European Commission analyses the fiscal and structural reform policies of every Member State, provides recommendations and monitors their implementation. In the second phase of the annual cycle, known as the National Semester, Member States implement the policies they have agreed.

European Social Fund: The European Social Fund (ESF) aims at strengthening economic and social cohesion within the European Union by improving employment and job opportunities (mainly through training measures), encouraging a high level of employment and the creation of more and better jobs.

Indicator: A measurable proxy for an objective that will give useful information to assess the degree to which an objective is met.

Intervention: Any action or operation, carried out by public authorities or other organisations, regardless of its nature (policy, programme, measure or project). Means of intervention employed are grants, loans, subsidised interest rates, guarantees, participation in equity and risk capital schemes or other forms of financing.

Managing authority: A managing authority is a national, regional or local public authority (or any other public or private body) which has been designated by a Member State to manage an operational programme. Its tasks include selecting projects to be funded, monitoring how projects are implemented and reporting to the Commission on financial aspects and results achieved.

National reform programme: This is an annual document which is prepared and submitted by each Member State presenting the country’s policies and measures to sustain growth and jobs and to reach the Europe 2020 strategy targets. The national reform programme is presented in parallel with its stability/convergence programme, which sets out the country’s budgetary plans for the coming 3 or 4 years.

Operational programme: An operational programme (OP) sets out a Member State’s priorities and specific objectives and how the funding (EU and national public and private co-financing) will be used during a given period (generally 7 years) to finance projects. These projects must contribute to achieve a certain number of objectives specified at the level of the OP’s priority axis. An OP is prepared by the Member State and has to be approved by the Commission before any payments from the EU budget can be made. OPs can only be modified during the period covered if both parties agree.

Priority axis: One of the priorities of the strategy in an operational programme comprising a group of operations which are related and have specific measurable goals.

Programme period: The multiannual framework within which Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund expenditure is planned and implemented.

Shared management: A method of implementing the EU budget where the Commission delegates implementation tasks to the Member States, while retaining final responsibility¹.

‘Youth guarantee’: The ‘Youth guarantee’, adopted by the Council recommendation of 22 April 2013 on establishing a ‘Youth guarantee’, should ensure that all young people under the age of 25 receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within 4 months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed. The ‘Youth guarantee’ is a crucial structural reform, making institutions work better together to provide concrete results for young people.

1Article 59 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union and repealing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 (OJ L 298, 26.10.2012, p. 1).

Executive summary

I

Youth unemployment is not a new phenomenon as most Member States have faced structural problems in integrating young people in the labour market for many years, and the youth unemployment rates are generally higher than the ones for other age categories. The financial and debt crisis exacerbated the longstanding problem of the EU’s youth (aged 15-24) unemployment rate. It increased from above 15 % in 2008 to unprecedentedly high levels of more than 23 % in 2013 and has reduced in 2014 to just above 22 %.

II

In December 2011, the Commission presented its ‘Youth opportunities initiative’, setting out measures to address youth unemployment. This built on its ‘Youth on the move’ flagship initiative and on the experience of actions funded through the European Social Fund (ESF). At the informal European Council meeting of 30 January 2012, as part of its ‘Youth opportunities initiative’, the Commission proposed to Member States to develop and implement comprehensive initiatives for youth employment, education and skills and introduce youth action plans within their national reform programmes.

III

It also proposed to set up youth action teams (YATs) bringing together national and Commission experts. These action teams should help the eight Member States with the highest levels of youth unemployment² to make the best use of EU structural funding by directing unallocated funds from the 2007–2013 programme period to projects that supported job opportunities for young people and facilitated access to funding by small businesses.

IV

The Court assessed whether the redirection (i.e. reprogramming and reallocation) of ESF funding benefited from proposals developed in 2012 by the youth action teams on how to achieve faster and more effective results for young unemployed people through ESF spending. The YATs initiative covered almost 10 billion euro of ESF funding still available for reprogramming in the eight Member States concerned.

V

We concluded that youth action teams set up for the eight Member States made limited specific proposals on how to achieve faster and more effective results for young unemployed people. The effectiveness of the advisory role of the Commission to the Member States in relation to the YATs was limited by the level and quality of information available to it on how existing ESF or national measures for young unemployed people work on the ground. While the YATs exercise led to the reprogramming and reallocation of ESF funds (according to data provided by the Commission totalling around 1.9 billion euro by June 2013), the assessment of the Commission on OP amendments focused mainly on budgetary aspects rather than on the best use of ESF funds. Finally, there were shortcomings in how the Commission monitored and reported on the results of the YATs initiative until 2014.

VI

The Court recommends that the Commission should:

—for future initiatives of this kind, take due account of the possibilities and constraints given by the political and legal context, its specific knowledge of and expertise in the area (based on the implementation of EU and nationally funded measures) and the availability of the required administrative and financial resources at EU and Member State level;

—for the 2014-2020 programme period:

(a)ensure that future reprogramming requests from Member States are triggered by an expectation of achieving better results rather than mainly resolving difficulties in absorbing EU funds;

(b)approve the Member States’ requests for OP amendments only if the additional results to be obtained through the proposed budgetary transfers can reasonably be achieved;

(c)require Member States to report in sufficient detail both extraordinary transfers within operational programmes and changes within priorities in their annual implementation reports and present the results achieved;

(d)participate actively in OP monitoring committees and encourage Member States to take the appropriate steps where it is clear from its assessment of the annual implementation reports that the targets will not be met;

—ensure that minimum plausibility and reliability checks are systematically carried out when using data provided by Member States in its communications.

2Ireland, Greece, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovakia.

Introduction

EU efforts to tackle youth unemployment

01

Youth unemployment is not a new phenomenon as most Member States have faced structural problems in integrating young people in the labour market for many years, and the youth unemployment rates are generally higher than the ones for other age categories (see Figure 1). The financial and debt crisis exacerbated the issue with the EU’s youth (aged 15-24) unemployment rate jumping rapidly from above 15 % in 2008 to 21 % in 2010, and again to more than 23 % in 2012 and 2013, reducing in 2014 to just above 22 %.

02

Within the framework of the European employment strategy, the European Commission has supported Member States in reducing the levels of youth unemployment for many years. Moreover, in the context of Europe 2020 strategy, the ‘Youth on the move’ flagship initiative was launched in September 2010 and presented a framework of policy priorities to reduce youth unemployment, with particular focus on facilitating the transition from education to work and reducing labour market segmentation.

Figure 1

Unemployment rate by age, 2008-2014, EU-28

Source: Eurostat, ‘Total unemployment — Labour Force Survey series — Unemployment rates by sex, age and nationality (%)’, update 28.9.2015.

03

On 20 December 2011, the Commission launched the ‘Youth opportunities initiative’³ (YOI), calling for immediate action to be taken in 2012 and 2013, both by Member States and the Commission. The EU’s aim was to support Member States in improving the employment and educational situation of young people by reviewing their policies and performance in the context of the European Semester surveillance process, and by mobilising the EU Structural Funds, in particular the European Social Fund (ESF), for actions aiming at reducing levels of youth unemployment.

04

In April 2013, following a Commission proposal, the Council recommended the Member States to provide a ‘Youth guarantee’, to the effect that they would ensure that all young people under the age of 25 received a good–quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within 4 months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed⁴.

The EU’s role in youth employment policy

05

The primary responsibility for tackling youth unemployment policy lies with Member States, at national, regional and local levels. According to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Member States and the EU have to develop a coordinated strategy for employment, in particular for promoting a skilled, trained and adaptable workforce and labour markets responsive to economic change⁵.

06

The EU’s role in employment policy is to coordinate the Member States’ employment policies and also to support and, if necessary, complement their action. Moreover, the objective of a high level of employment has to be taken into account in the formulation and implementation of EU policies and activities⁶.

07

In the context of the European employment strategy, reinforced since 2011 by the European Semester of economic governance, the Commission also has a role in proposing country-specific recommendations to the Council, which concern inter alia the employment policies of the Member States⁷.

Youth action teams

08

At the informal European Council meeting of 30 January 2012, as part of the YOI, the Commission proposed that Member States develop and implement comprehensive initiatives for youth employment, education and skills, and introduce youth action plans into their national reform programmes. The Commission also put forward the idea of setting up youth action teams (YATs), to help the eight Member States with the highest levels of youth unemployment to mobilise EU funding — including from the ESF — that was still available under the 2007-2013 programme period to support job opportunities for young people and help SMEs access funds⁸ (see Box 1).

Box 1

Mandate and composition of the youth action teams

The youth action teams initiative was launched with the aim of targeting unallocated EU funding and expertise to deliver faster and more effective results. Each team had to work with the national partners on targeted actions to combat youth unemployment and help the SMEs to get access to loan and grant financing. The experts were to have a fresh look at the use of Structural Funds and utilise the Commission’s knowledge of good practice in different Member States in order to help national authorities reallocate funds to projects that would make the ’biggest difference in the shortest time’⁹.

The YATs were composed of experts from the competent national authorities and from the Commission’s Directorates-General for Regional and Urban Policy, Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Education and Culture, and Economic and Financial Affairs. They were coordinated by representatives from the prime ministers’ offices in the Member States and the Secretariat-General of the Commission under the authority of its President.

09

The YATs initiative focused on the eight Member States having rates of youth unemployment of around 30 % or above at the end of 2011: Ireland, Greece, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovakia. Member States were selected on the basis of youth unemployment rates. While the European Council has requested the Commission to work as a first step with those Member States which have the highest youth unemployment levels to redirect available EU funds towards support for young people to get into work or training¹⁰, no consideration was given by the Commission to the ESF funding available for reprogramming when selecting the eight Member States (see Table 1). The action teams were set up in February 2012 and they held meetings in the eight Member States between 14 and 28 February 2012 (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

Youth action teams meetings in 2012 in the eight Member States: dates of meetings, youth unemployment rate, number of youths unemployed

Source: Eurostat: Youth employment figures. Commission: Dates of the YATs meetings.

European Social Fund: situation prior to the 2012/2013 redirection exercise

10

The ESF regulation stipulates that it shall contribute towards the EU’s priorities as regards strengthening economic and social cohesion by improving employment and job opportunities, encouraging a high level of employment with more and better jobs¹¹.

11

The ESF operates under shared management, with the Commission bearing the ultimate responsibility for the implementation of the EU budget¹². The Fund is implemented through national and regional multiannual operational programmes (OPs) prepared by the Member States and approved by the Commission. Within each OP, total available funds are broken down among the different priority axes of the OP.

12

During the programme period, before closure of the programmes, in circumstances requiring departure from the original goals set in the programme and in accordance with the regulations, the Member States or the Commission in agreement with the Member States may change the distribution of the unused funds from one priority to another. This redirecting can take the form of a transfer:

οbetween OPs (for example between two ESF OPs or between an ESF and a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)/Cohesion Fund OP);

οbetween priority axes of a given OP; or

οwithin two different sub-parts of a given priority axis.

13

The first two cases are ‘reprogramming’, and require a Commission decision to amend the OP. For the third case, referred to in this report as ‘reallocation’, the transfer may also be made on the basis of a Commission decision or performed by the Member State itself within the flexibility of the priority axis concerned. In the latter case, the managing authority would have to be asked to assess the budget reallocation involved.

14

Furthermore, the Commission performs a supervisory role over the monitoring framework and it is also responsible for checking that the OPs have delivered the expected outputs and results. In practice, as part of its monitoring responsibility, the Commission reviews the annual implementation reports prepared by the managing authorities¹³ and holds annual examination meetings with the managing authorities to examine the progress made in the implementation of the operational programmes, with a view to improving them¹⁴. The Commission also participates in the work of the monitoring committees in an advisory capacity¹⁵.

15

The ESF budget for the 2007-2013 programme period amounted to 76 billion euro (more than 10 billion euro per year) and it was allocated through 117 operational programmes across the 27 Member States at the time. However, by the end of 2011, Member States still had 22 billion euro in ESF funds which had not been committed to concrete activities. Of this almost 10 billion euro in unallocated ESF funds were available for the YATs in the eight Member States with the highest youth unemployment rates (see Table 1).

Table 1

Unallocated ESF funds for the eight YATs Member States at the launch of the YATs initiative

Member State
Amount
(million euro)
Share of total unallocated ESF
(EU-27)

Italy
3 674
16.5 %

Spain
2 712
12.2 %

Portugal
1 760
7.9 %

Greece
1 495
6.7 %

Lithuania
289
1.3 %

Slovakia
39
0.2 %

Ireland
2
0.0 %

Latvia¹
0
0.0 %

Total of the 8 Member States
9 971
44.8 %

Other Member States
12 300
55.2 %

Total unallocated ESF
22 271
100.0 %

1For Latvia, there were no unallocated ESF funds available.

Source: Commission estimate at the end of 2011.

Results of the youth action teams initiative as reported by the Commission

16

In its update to the Council in March 2013, the Commission outlined that targeted investment from the EU structural funds can have a powerful impact on growth and employment. The aim of the action teams was to maximise the impact of EU structural funding by directing the funds still to be allocated for the 2007-2013 period to projects directly supporting young people and SMEs. At the start of the exercise in 2012, it was estimated that around 82 billion euro of EU structural funds were still to be allocated for the budgetary period 2007-2013 across the EU.

17

This included around 30 billion euro for the eight Member States where action teams were created. According to the document, the work of the teams has contributed by the beginning of 2013 to a mobilisation in each of the eight Member States of this funding totalling 16 billion euro. It added that this funding would help around 780 000 young people and 55 000 SMEs as well as supporting other growth-enhancing measures.

18

In March 2014, the Commission issued its most recent publication focusing on ESF redirection¹⁶. According to this, ESF resources reprogrammed and/or reallocated to specific actions for youth amounted to around 4.2 billion euro¹⁷, of which 1.8 billion euro had been committed to projects which were ongoing at that time in the Member States. Around 1.2 million young people were likely to benefit from this support (see paragraphs 51 to 56).

3COM(2011) 933 final of 20 December 2011 ‘Youth opportunities initiative’.

4Council recommendation of 22 April 2013 on establishing a ‘Youth guarantee’ (OJ C 120, 26.4.2013, p. 1).

5Article 145 of the TFEU (OJ C 326, 26.10.2012, p. 112).

6Article 147 of the TFEU (OJ C 326, 26.10.2012, p. 112).

7Article 148 of the TFEU (OJ C 326, 26.10.2012, p. 112).

8European Council ‘Statement of the Members of the European Council’ 30 January 2012; Presentation of J.M. Barroso, ‘Growth and jobs: next steps’ to the informal European Council of 30 January 2012; COM MEMO 12/100, 14 February 2012.

9Commission Memo/12/100, 14.2.2012.

10European Council, ‘Statement of the Members of the European Council’, 30 January 2012.

11Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 1081/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 July 2006 on the European Social Fund and repealing Regulation (EC) 1784/1999 (OJ L 210, 31.7.2006, p. 12).

12See Article 17(1) TEU; Article 317 TFEU; Article 53(1) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012.

13Article 67 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 of 11 July 2006 laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999. (OJ L 210, 31.7.2006, p. 25).

14Article 68 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006.

15Article 64 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006.

16European Commission Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, ’Youth employment initiative and the European Social Fund, European Social Fund thematic paper’, March 2014.

17The ESF resources reported by the Commission include, for Italy, a reallocation of national funds to measures combating youth unemployment which was made possible via the reduction of the national co-funding rate for ESF and ERDF OPs. The financial resources then released of more than 1.5 billion euro were invested within a nationally funded cohesion action plan, in a series of initiatives, including several benefiting young unemployed people.

Audit scope and approach

19

Through this audit the Court assessed whether the redirection of ESF funding benefited from proposals developed in 2012 by the youth action teams on how to achieve faster and more effective results for young unemployed people through ESF spending. The audit scope was limited to ESF-related actions within the YATs initiative and excluded those from other sources including in particular the ERDF. We examined whether:

οthe Commission, through the knowledge and information available for existing ESF youth employment initiatives and measures and/or its knowledge of good practice in other Member States, had effectively fulfilled the advisory role envisaged in this initiative;

οthe YATs initiative had resulted in the Member States making proposals for a significant and targeted reprogramming of the funds available under the 2007-2013 ESF operational programmes (or by reallocating funds within the OP priority axis) and the proposals had been assessed by the Commission in line with the objectives of the YATs initiative;

οadequate arrangements were established by the Commission to report on the follow-up of the YATs initiative.

20

Our audit covered the period 2012 to 2014 and focused on the Commission’s contribution to the YATs initiative. In particular it included:

οa review of the information which the Commission had in 2012 concerning ESF measures in favour of young unemployed people and the respective performance of these measures;

οa review of the reprogramming made within 12 months after the YATs meetings for the 60 ESF operational programmes of the eight Member States concerned by the YATs initiative, and a detailed examination of the amendments for a sample of eight OPs¹⁸ and the related Commission assessment;

οan analysis of the Commission’s monitoring and reporting on the results of the YATs until the end of 2014.

21

Evidence was obtained from documentary reviews and interviews with the Commission, and a survey was addressed to the relevant Commission departments involved in the YATs exercise with regard to ESF funding.

22

In March 2015 we published a first report concerning the issue of youth unemployment, namely on the EU ‘Youth guarantee’¹⁹.

18Ireland: OP Human Capital Investment; Greece: OP Education and Lifelong Learning and OP Human Resources Development; Spain: OP Navarra Region; Italy: OP Sicily Region; Lithuania: OP Human Resources Development; Portugal: OP Human Potential; Slovakia: OP Employment and Social Inclusion (see Table 1).

19ECA Special Report No 3/2015 ‘EU Youth Guarantee: first steps taken but implementation risks ahead’ (http://eca.europa.eu).

Observations

Assessment of the effectiveness of the Commission’s advisory role

23

The YATs initiative was launched with the expectation that the Commission, through an advisory role, would help the national/regional authorities in the eight Member States reallocate ESF funding to projects that would make the biggest difference in the shortest time (see Box 1). In particular, the Commission’s experts were tasked to work with the national authorities and national social partners on targeted actions to combat youth unemployment.

24

Therefore, we examined:

οthe performance and financial information available to the Commission on ESF measures for young unemployed people; and

οthe preparatory action of the Commission prior to the YATs meetings.

Available ESF performance and financial information limited the effectiveness of the Commission’s advisory role to youth action teams

Performance information

25

The performance-related information available to the Commission regarding ESF employment measures implemented by Member States derived from regular monitoring and evaluation activities at national level. The mandatory minimum reporting obligations of Member States to the Commission were set out in the regulations²⁰. This reporting was generally at the level of the priority axis under the OP. In addition, Member States were requested by the Commission to provide ad hoc information on a voluntary basis.

26

Monitoring the performance of a specific measure or project was the responsibility of the managing authority in the Member State. The Commission gathered and reviewed this monitoring and evaluation data on an ongoing basis for individual Member States. During the 2007-2013 programme period, Member States also had a large discretion as to how they report aggregate performance information to the Commission. The regulation prescribed only one mandatory type of indicator, which was output data for participants²¹. With reference to young people, Member States were for example only required to monitor and report annually on the number of participants in ESF measures for people between 15 and 24 years of age. There were no result indicators specified in the regulations.

27

The 2014 ESF Expert Evaluation Network report on the main ESF achievements in 2007-2013 also noted that on the basis of the existing arrangements it was not possible for them to obtain meaningful data on the results of the ESF interventions in the Member States²².

28

Moreover, there are weaknesses as regards the quality and reliability of the ESF performance information generally reported by the Member States to the Commission, as noted by the Court in previous reports²³. The Internal Audit Service of the Commission in its December 2013 report on Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion performance measurement systems raised similar issues.

29

On the basis of the monitoring information reported by the Member States, the Commission generally did not know which activities had proved effective in the past in achieving the target objective of getting young people to work. As a result, the Commission was not in a position to easily identify ‘lessons learnt’ or ‘good practices’ (i.e. which ESF measures — whose effectiveness had been proven in the past — could have been rapidly launched with or without reprogramming and which existing measures should have been adapted because they did not work or because they were not a priority).

Complementary ad hoc survey

30

In 2010, the Commission carried out an exercise to examine ‘with Member States the ESF interventions targeting youth and to increase awareness and maximise the potential of the ESF to support young people’²⁴. This exercise aimed at identifying ‘good practices’ for an efficient use of ESF money in order to increase youth employment opportunities and inspire the application of these practices more widely in the Member States’ programmes (see paragraph 25).

31

To this end, the Commission surveyed ESF managing authorities in all Member States. On the basis of the replies received, the Commission prepared a report which it defined as ‘an initial step in identifying some of the measures and approaches that are being developed within the ESF, which provide effective support to young people in acquiring relevant education and training and in finding employment and an active role in society²⁵’.

32

This report is informative in that it contains numerous examples of measures implemented across the Member States. However, there is no analysis made in the report as to which ESF measure should be considered ‘good practice’. In particular, no reference is made to the effectiveness and efficiency of the interventions in terms of actual measurable results achieved for young people.

33

The report also includes annexes containing an overview of the financial allocation and implementation of the various operational programmes, as well as the number of participants. This information was provided by the Member States on a voluntary basis. The Commission’s disclaimer to the effect that ‘these data are neither comprehensive, nor fully comparable’ illustrates the weaknesses in this type of data available to the Commission on the implementation of the ESF (see paragraphs 25 to 29).

Financial information

34

For the purpose of the specific YATs exercise the Commission should have had at its disposal a sufficiently detailed overview of the amounts that were potentially available for reprogramming and/or reallocation to support job opportunities for young people. Therefore, we assessed the extent to which such information was available to facilitate the Commission’s preparation of the YATs meetings. Such information was not readily available to the Commission and therefore it needed to establish agreed estimates with the Member States concerned.

35

As regards financial information, one of the difficulties lies with the fact that the ESF financial monitoring system for the 2007-2013 programming period does not allow for funding to be directly linked to specific target groups (such as young unemployed people). The expenditure categories foreseen by the legal framework have been designed by type of intervention, such as ‘implementing active and preventive measures on the labour market’ instead of being classified by target group such as for example ‘young people’ or ‘older workers’²⁶.

36

Information on ESF funding potentially available for reprogramming/reallocation is monitored at national level by the managing authorities. The Commission has however agreed in the ESF Technical Working Group with Member States that they voluntarily report their financial execution on the ground for each OP on a quarterly basis. Our audit showed that this quarterly financial reporting was not harmonised: in particular, Member States reported on the basis of their national definitions of the terms ’unallocated’ or ’uncommitted’. Indeed, these definitions stem from a variety of accounting practices across the Member States. As a result the Commission did not necessarily have the most accurate information on financial implementation at its disposal.

37

In this regard, we found significant inconsistencies for Slovakia between the aggregate estimates published by the Commission for unallocated funds and the data used in the context of the YATs exercise (see Box 2).

The Commission’s preparatory activities resulted in generic ‘country fiches’

38

In February 2012, the Commission announced that its experts were ‘ready to go on the ground and work with the specific situation and needs of each country’²⁷. We assessed whether the Commission, on the basis of its surveillance of the Member States’ employment policies, had, prior to the YATs meetings with the national authorities:

οanalysed the needs and/or challenges that specific groups of young people faced when entering the labour market;

οexamined employers’ current and future skills requirements²⁸;

οidentified how ESF interventions could contribute towards fulfilling some of these needs; and

οanalysed potential changes to the implementation of the programmes (such as adjustments to eligibility and selection criteria) so as to improve the effectiveness of the ESF measures.

39

In order to prepare effectively for the YATs meetings the Commission’s Secretariat-General prepared a template (known as the ‘country fiche’) which was circulated for completion by all directorates-general (DGs) which would be involved with the youth action teams (see Box 1). In this context the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion was tasked to provide an analysis of the main causes of high youth unemployment for each of the eight Member States and the groups of young people particularly affected by it. It was also requested to examine the need to refocus available EU funding on youth in the context of ESF operational programme implementation, to identify which short-term ESF measures could help and to look at the possibilities for fast implementation. The completed ‘country fiches’ were consolidated by the Secretariat–General and sent to the Member States prior to the meeting.

Box 2

Example of inconsistencies in information provided on funds available

In November 2011, for Slovakia, the Commission estimated 39 million euro of available ESF funds, whereas, following the Commission’s visit in February 2012 to the Member State in question, 422 million euro of ESF funds were available. While higher estimates are plausible due to the time lags inherent in the reporting system, this cannot be the case for the lower figure.

40

Our analysis of the ‘country fiches’ showed that they provided a general overview of the causes of high unemployment at Member State level (e.g. job instability due to labour market segmentation, drop-outs, long-term unemployment amongst young people, skills mismatches, an absence of job vacancies due to the higher unemployment rate, the economic crisis, etc.). In its ‘country fiches’, the Commission did, to a certain extent, identify the groups of young people particularly affected by unemployment by age and partly by level of education (i.e. ’less skilled/less qualified’). Despite the fact that the Eurostat standard measurement for youth unemployment covers the population in the age range of 15-24, we found that there was a varying degree of detail and little uniformity in the analysis included in the ‘country fiches’ regarding the age range of what constitutes a ‘young person’²⁹. Moreover, the analysis did not cover the scale of the problem for young people according to gender, geographical location and/or type of disadvantages (e.g. immigrants, marginalised minorities, etc.).

41

The Commission’s ‘country fiches’ also did not include any analysis of the trends in skills and labour market needs by country and by sector, despite the fact that a good understanding of the employer’s needs is crucial to reduce a skills mismatch. An analysis of the sectors showing a potential increase in labour demand could have been particularly helpful in a situation where high unemployment coexists with increasing difficulties in filling vacancies, as was the case for the EU Member States from 2010 onwards. This would have facilitated the redirection of training towards sectors with greater job capacity³⁰.

42

Moreover, our audit showed that the analyses provided by the Commission which contributed to the elaboration of the ‘country fiches’ contained vague statements such as ’we need to develop urgently the skills that are or will be needed in the labour market’³¹ or ’the training should be strictly related to both current and mid-term labour market needs, in priority economic sectors’³².

43

As regards the short-term measures to fight youth unemployment, which could be supported by the ESF, we noted that the ‘country fiches’ were very general and not time-bound. They could refer to any Member State, particularly in the absence of a detailed analysis of labour market needs (see Box 3).

Box 3

Examples of generic measures mentioned in the ‘country fiches’

The Commission suggested that Ireland should ‘enhance targeted active labour-market policies for youth with an emphasis on tailor-made career guidance, counselling and job search activities’, ‘intervene rapidly, by offering further education, (re)training or activation measures …’ or ‘speed up labour market transitions for young people’.

For Portugal, it suggested measures aimed at young unemployed persons, such as ‘traineeships and retraining and guidance in areas/professions relevant for labour market needs’.

44

While the ‘country fiches’ did identify the groups of young people particularly affected by unemployment, the proposed ESF interventions therein did not always target them specifically. For example, in Italy, young people with a ’high and medium education’ were found to be in particular difficulty. However, the main initiative identified in the ‘country fiche’ involved the reprogramming of available funds from regional ESF OPs (311 million euro for 2012) to the national OP on education, which mostly addresses primary and secondary schools. This choice was mainly motivated by the objective of maximising financial absorption. Apprenticeship contracts and tax credit mechanisms were also suggested as possible interventions, without any evidence that these would be the best instruments to be used in Italy for highly qualified people, in view of its labour market situation.

Outcome of the youth action teams initiative

45

In order to assess the outcome of the YATs initiative, we examined whether:

οthe YATs meetings resulted in specific proposals for faster and more effective ESF measures to reduce levels of youth unemployment;

οthere are estimates of the amounts of ESF funds reprogrammed or reallocated as a result of the YATs meetings;

οthe Commission assessed the effectiveness of OP amendments proposed by Member States following the YATs meetings;

οthe Commission’s invitation to prepare youth action plans in accordance with the outcome of the YATs meetings was followed by Member States and whether the national reform programmes included reference to the expected results of the ESF reprogramming and reallocation exercise following the YATs meetings.

Youth action teams meetings provided proposals for ESF reprogramming and reallocation in general terms

46

Following the YATs meetings in February 2012, the Commission summarised the proposals made for ESF reprogramming and budget reallocation in conclusion notes (called operational conclusions) prepared by the Secretariat-General and formally transmitted them to the Member States.

47

Our analysis of Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion reports about the YATs meetings and the Secretariat-General’s operational conclusions showed that for seven of the eight Member States, the participants discussed in general terms possible options for the redistribution of ESF funds. They did not actually specify how existing instruments/programmes could be used more effectively to address youth unemployment. Examples of the outcome of these discussions as recorded by the Commission were: ‘further prioritisation in reprogramming to give more emphasis to youth employment and support to SMEs can be explored‘ (Italy)³³ or ‘the authorities will explore the idea of financing additional Leonardo/Erasmus traineeships under the ESF OP‘ and ‘will explore possible pilot projects for dual vocational training‘ (Spain)³⁴.

48

The YAT meeting with the Lithuanian authorities can be considered as a good practice case compared to the general approach followed (see Box 4).

Box 4

Specific proposals in the operational conclusions of the YAT meeting in Lithuania

The operational conclusions of the YAT meeting in Lithuania identified concrete actions to improve the situation of young people unemployed by refocusing in a short time ESF available funds. These actions included amongst others:

οthe prolongation of the project ’Be active on the labour market’ which had ended in January 2012 to cover an additional 6 000-10 000 young people during 2012-2013 (additional ESF funding need estimated at 6-10 million euro). The effectiveness of this project had been positively assessed, more than half of the participants being employed on a permanent basis;

οthe acceleration of the implementation of the Entrepreneurship Promotion Fund by providing an additional 400 loans and to train an additional 1 000 young people (additional ESF funding need estimated at 3 million euro). Almost half of the participants were people under 29 years old.

49

The Secretariat-General’s operational conclusions emphasised the need to expand or extend existing measures, but they did not clarify sufficiently how the effectiveness of existing measures could be improved. For example, the operational conclusions for Greece mentioned the following measures: ‘increasing the effective implementation of the new national lifelong learning strategy, strengthening Vocational Education and Training (VET) and apprenticeships systems…’³⁵, but they did not specify how these measures could be improved compared to the past, in order to help young people overcome the specific barriers they face in entering the labour market.

50

Some existing measures were proposed to be extended because they had ensured quick implementation in terms of absorption of funds without their past effectiveness in terms of results (e.g. number of final recipients entering jobs after the ESF intervention) having been discussed or assessed. Finally, our analysis showed that the Commission did not provide any technical guidelines for Member States on how to improve the targeting of funds in the implementation of their OPs (e.g. by defining the scope of the activities better, launching specific calls for tender including specific selection criteria addressing the needs of the priority target groups of young people, etc.) during these meetings.

Youth action teams led to reprogramming and/or reallocation of ESF funds but providing an overall figure is difficult

51

For our assessment of the outcome of the YATs in terms of redirection of ESF funding to measures aiming at reducing levels of youth unemployment, we considered two specific aspects: the formal ESF reprogramming (with approval through a Commission decision) and the budget reallocation process within a priority axis of an existing OP. In order to provide an estimate of the total amount of ESF reprogramming/reallocation following the YATs initiative, we reviewed financial information provided by the Commission in 2015 for all 60 ESF OPs concerned. We assessed in detail the extent of the reprogramming for a sample of eight ESF OPs.

52

Our analysis showed that there was an ESF reprogramming exercise after the YATs meetings in February 2012. A total of 36 ESF OPs out of 60 in the eight Member States were reprogrammed between February 2012 and March 2013. For the eight OPs that we examined in detail, the ESF funds reprogrammed with the objective of delivering fast results to tackle youth unemployment, as confirmed by the Commission, amounted to 337 million euro.

53

Providing an exact overall figure on the ESF reprogramming and/or reallocation in relation to the YATs is difficult since it may not have been a consequence of the related meetings, but due to other reasons. According to the information made available by Member States to the Commission, by June 2013, the YATs initiative has resulted in the reprogramming and/or reallocation of around 1 915 million euro of ESF funds in the concerned Member States with the exception of Latvia (see Table 2). This corresponds to 19.2 % of the 9 971 million euro initially available unallocated ESF funds for the eight Member States.

54

Moreover, we found that this information is not accurate, at least for Italy, where the reported total reallocated amount of 557 million euro includes, for the regional ESF OP in Italy (Puglia), an amount of 27 million euro which has in fact been reprogrammed and reported as such in the total reprogrammed amount (i.e. 131 million euro).

Table 2

ESF amounts reprogrammed and reallocated as a result of the YATs until June 2013, as reported by the Commission

Member State
Number of ESF OPs
ESF before YATs (end 2011)
ESF amounts mobilised for youth employment measures/actions as a result of the YATs

Total ESF¹
(million euro)
ESF unallocated according to the Commission
(million euro)
ESF amounts reprogrammed according to the Commission
(million euro)
ESF amounts reallocated according to the Commission
(million euro)
Total³
(million euro)
Share over total ESF(3/1)

Ireland¹
1
375
2
25
25
6.7 %

Greece
4
4 364
1 495
466
466
10.7 %

Spain
22
8 057
2 712
491
491
6.1 %

Italy²
24
6 931
3 674
131
557
688
9.9 %

Latvia
1
583
0
0
0
0
0.0 %

Lithuania
2
1 028
289
27
27
2.6 %

Portugal
4
6 845
1 760
143
143
2.1 %

Slovakia³
2
1 500
39
75
0
75
5.0 %

TOTAL
60
29 683
9 971

1 915
6.5 %

1For Ireland, the reallocation of 25 million euro was already requested in December 2011, i.e. before the YATs initiative was launched.

2For Italy, the reported reallocated amount includes 27 million euro of the OP Puglia which in fact have been reprogrammed and reported as such in the reprogrammed amount (see paragraph 54).

3For Slovakia, the estimation of 39 million euro of unallocated funds as communicated by the Commission was underestimated; it appeared later that in fact 422 million euro were available (see Box 2).

Source: ECA calculation based on the System for Fund Management in the EU (SFC2007) and data provided by the Commission.

55

The Commission was not in a position to provide a breakdown between the ESF amounts reprogrammed and those reallocated for five of the eight Member States. For the sampled OPs the Commission could provide information only for ESF OPs in two Member States: the Greek Education and Lifelong Learning OP (approx. 24 million euro related to new measures for youth) and the Human Resources Development OP for Lithuania (approx. 29 million euro).

56

In March 2014, the Commission issued its most recent publication focusing on ESF redirection³⁶. According to this, ESF resources reprogrammed and/or reallocated to specific actions for youth amounted to around 4.2 billion euros³⁷, of which 1.8 billion euro had been committed to projects which were ongoing at that time in the Member States. Around 1.2 million young people were likely to benefit from this support. The Court could not confirm the accuracy of these figures.

57

In 2014 the EU’s youth (aged 15-24) unemployment rate has decreased to just above 22 % (see paragraph 1). The evolution of the trend in the youth unemployment rate in the eight Member States concerned by the YAT initiative is shown below (see Figure 3) but a direct link has not been established with the YATs exercise.

Figure 3

Unemployment rates for young aged 15 to 24 in YATs Member States, 2008-2014

Source: Eurostat; Total unemployment - Labour Force Survey series - Unemployment rates by sex, age and nationality (%).

The Commission’s assessment of the ESF OP amendments proposed by the Member States focused mainly on budgetary aspects

58

When proposing to amend an OP, the Member States are required to provide analyses of the reasons for the revisions, including the expected impact of those revisions³⁸. In order to ensure the economic, efficient and effective use of EU funds, Member States should also explain the intended effects of the changes, in terms of their effectiveness and efficiency in achieving results in relation to the OP and EU objectives.

59

In its communication on the YATs initiative the Commission stated that ’the reprogramming must be done in agreement between the European Commission and each of the eight Member States and this will be the core work of the action teams’³⁹. In this context, the Commission’s ESF-related work consisted in particular of verifying how the support for fighting youth unemployment on the ground in these Member States could be accelerated and/or redirected towards interventions which work/could work faster than others and have the necessary impact.

60

Our analysis of the available documentation for the eight ESF OPs sampled indicates however that the Commission had focused its assessment primarily on budgetary aspects (e.g. avoiding the potential risk of the automatic de-commitment of allocations, accelerating the low financial implementation of OP, etc.), rather than on the effectiveness of the proposed changes, i.e. the best use of ESF funds to help young people to find a job or increase their employability. The Commission, through its assessment and comments to Member States, did not ensure that the submitted OP amendments were justified with reference to the achievement of better results. Nor did it ensure that the proposed reprogramming was an appropriate response to address the specific needs of the different groups of young people (see Box 5).

61

While not mandatory under the 2007-2013 ESF framework, the Commission did not generally encourage Member States to set out or adjust result indicators which would allow a better assessment of the effectiveness of the reallocated funding for young people. The audit found that, with the exception of Portugal (Human Potential OP, see Box 6) and Spain (Navarra OP), the other audited OPs did not set relevant result indicators.

Box 5

Example of an OP-proposed amendment not assessed by the Commission from a performance perspective

In the case of Spain (Navarra OP), the region justified the reprogramming with two objectives of accelerating the low implementation of the OP (which, in December 2011, risked not being able to absorb all allocated funds) and mitigating the impact of the economic crisis on young people, people over 45 years old, people with disabilities and the long-term unemployed. In the framework of this OP, one of the aims was to reinforce the 'Programmes for initial professional qualification' (PCPI), which offer a path for young people that have not obtained a certificate of basic education.

Although the Commission’s assessment states that one of the objectives of the revision was to ‘meet existing demand for training, skilling and reskilling action’, the region’s explanation for the changes in the OP does not actually contain any information on what skilling or reskilling is required. There was no evidence that the Commission tried to ascertain whether the changes to training systems proposed by the regional authorities of Navarra moved in the direction of providing skills that were in line with the demands of the labour market.

The objective of increasing absorption of available funding was also one of the main objectives in the revision of the proposed OP amendments for Ireland, Italy (Sicily) and Portugal.

Box 6

Example of good practice of specifying new results indicator

Following the YAT meeting, Portugal launched the 'Youth impulse' programme, which provides a set of measures aimed at unemployed young people, providing them with work experience to assist their integration in the labour market.

Under the ESF Human Potential OP, a new series of professional internships called ‘Employment passport’, were introduced as part of the 'Youth impulse' programme. Through the amendment of this OP, the target values of two result indicators (‘number of jobs created’ and ‘number of trainees integrated after ending an internship’) were increased to reflect the increased financial allocation. In addition it also introduced a new indicator: ‘number of jobs created by reimbursing social security contributions’ to measure the performance of the support for hiring young people, via the repayment of contributions to social security conditional on net job creation.

Youth action plans prepared with different levels of detail and limited reference to youth action teams in the national reform programmes

62

Based on information provided by the Commission, while not a mandatory requirement, following the YATs meetings youth action/employment plans have been prepared by five out of the eight Member States: Greece, Italy (Sicily)⁴⁰, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovakia⁴¹. According to the Commission their main objective is to set out specific policy and budgetary measures to support job creation and training for young people, tackling skills mismatch and early school leaving.

63

Four of these action plans (for Greece, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovakia⁴²) presented measures to be supported by the ESF with different levels of detail on how funding would be refocused on targeted measures/actions tackling youth unemployment. The 2012 action plan for Italy (Sicily) was funded by national resources freed by increasing the EU co-financing rate for this regional ESF OP and involved no ESF funding.

64

Our audit revealed that not all the measures set out in the youth action plans indicated a strong targeting of the identified priority group. For instance, despite the fact that, according to the Commission’s documents, the YAT meeting in Portugal stated that highly qualified young people were a priority in order to tackle the ‘brain drain’, the presented measures to be supported by ESF were not specifically aimed at young people with high qualifications⁴³ (see Box 7).

Box 7

Example of weak targeting of the identified priority groups

The minutes of the YAT meeting state that ’in order to tackle the ’brain drain’ and putting the expertise of the highly qualified at the service of the Portuguese labour market and businesses, the strategic plan pays special attention to those with master’s and PhD degrees’. However, in the Portuguese youth action plan, provided by the Commission, the single measure specifically targeted to the higher education category represented only 11 % of the ESF resources devoted to the plan.

65

Elements of these youth action plans could be included by Member States in their national reform programmes (NRPs). These NRPs are assessed by the Commission in the context of the European Semester exercise. Therefore we also reviewed the 2012 and 2013 NRPs for the eight Member States, and the related Commission assessment, to ascertain whether they made reference to the outcomes of the YATs meetings.

66

We found that the outcome of the YATs meetings and its implication for redirecting ESF funding towards youth employment measures were referred to only in a general way in the NRPs (see Box 8).

67

Also, in the Commission’s assessment of the NRPs, the reference to the YATs was mainly linked to general statements on amounts being reprogrammed to measures supporting young people rather than concrete solutions for the specific situation and needs of young unemployed people and their expected impact.

Box 8

Examples of ESF-supported youth employment measures referred to in NRPs

The Italian NRP for 2012 indicated that ‘reprogramming will be extended to new measures for youth training and employability, within the framework of the EU-Italy action group on youth unemployment and entrepreneurship established after the European Council of 30 January 2012’. However, no details of measures affected by the reprogramming were provided.

The Irish NRP for 2012 included a section on youth unemployment. This section mentioned the visit of a Commission delegation in February to discuss the key challenges of youth unemployment. However, it did not include any description of the outcome of that visit in terms of measures that would be supported by EU funds. The text stated that the Irish government remained ’committed to developing innovative policy solutions to tackle this key challenge’.

The Commission’s monitoring and reporting on the results of the youth action teams initiative

68

As regards the follow-up given by the Commission to the YATs initiative, we examined whether:

οspecific monitoring arrangements were established for the YATs reprogrammed and reallocated amounts;

οthe Commission’s reporting contained relevant and reliable information on the actual achievements of the YATs initiative.

The Commission’s follow-up of the results of the youth action teams initiative was on the basis of the existing ESF monitoring arrangements

69

The Commission has monitored together with the Member States the YATs-related OP modifications in favour of youth on the basis of the existing ESF regulatory framework, in particular through the annual implementation reports and the annual examination of the OPs.

70

The annual implementation reports reviewed by the Court revealed that little information was available on the reprogramming exercise and the related results achieved. They usually include only examples and not consistent and comparable information on specific youth target groups. We found that Spain (Navarra OP) was the only case where the Commission explicitly requested the Member State to include monitoring indicators related to the ‘Youth opportunities initiative’⁴⁴ in its observations to the 2012 implementation report.

71

We also assessed the minutes of the annual examination meetings provided by the Commission and found that, in four out of the seven⁴⁵ cases examined, their comments focused on financial implementation and outputs rather than on actual results. In these minutes, we found reference to achievements in the context of the YATs initiative for Italy, Lithuania and Slovakia.

72

Based on our analysis, the Commission accepted the data presented by Member States in the annual examination meetings without carrying out sufficient verification (see Box 9).

Box 9

Example of issues arising from data reported by the Member States on what was achieved

The Commission’s minutes for the annual examination meeting held with the Lithuanian authorities in January 2014 stated that the targets for three measures had already been achieved⁴⁶. For one of them, the measure concerning the provision of micro-credits, our recalculation revealed that in fact only 72 % of the target value had been achieved.

Shortcomings in the Commission’s reporting on results of the youth action teams initiative

73

In order to keep the European Council informed on the progress with the YATs reprogramming exercise, the Commission made informal requests on an ad hoc basis for information to the ESF managing authorities, to obtain updates regarding the situation in the Member State and in particular on ESF reprogrammed/reallocated funds and on the estimated number of people likely to benefit. The Commission limited its information request to output indicators (e.g. participation in ESF measures), rather than results (see paragraph 26).

74

Based on this information, the Commission reported on the results of the YATs initiative in response to the various updates requested by the European Council (May 2012, November 2012, March 2013, June 2013 and October 2013) and on its own initiative (in March 2014).

75

Our review of the Commission’s update reports to the European Council and other communications showed that these reports did not provide a qualitative analysis of the implementation of the reprogrammed and reallocated funds (see Box 10).

76

Examples presented as ‘concrete actions’ and ‘country-specific results on how the action teams have helped young people’ were sometimes not exhaustive (see Box 11).

Box 10

Examples of limited analysis provided by the Commission within its updates to the European Council

The YATs updates were limited in their description of the results of the action teams. For example, the May 2012 update included, for Greece: ‘following the work of the YAT in spring 2012, new targeted actions are being initiated for youth’ without specifying which new youth measures would be supported by the ESF and what were the financial amounts at stake.

In addition, for Spain, it stated that ‘135 million euro was directed to the public employment service to help young people find work’. These additional funds were provided to support measures already in place at national level especially in order to help employ more young people, without providing any explanation as to their past effectiveness.

Box 11

Example of overoptimistic reporting on concrete actions

In the case of the regional ESF OP for Italy (Sicily), new actions in favour of youth employment were not financed by the transfer of ESF resources but by the release, through an increased EU co-financing rate, of national resources originally allocated to the operational programme. This was done under the condition that national funds would have been entirely devoted to youth. This resulted in a plan worth 452 million euro which was expected to benefit 50 000 young people. This was announced and reported by the Commission as ongoing in several updates to the Council between May 2012 and June 2013.

However, in June 2013, the monitoring committee informed the Commission that the plan showed a significant delay in its start-up phase. The project was finally launched in June 2014 but, immediately afterwards, in August 2014, the Sicilian region revoked the resolution approving and funding the project for the implementation of the measures envisaged. This was due to significant deficiencies in the IT system for selection of participants, which had led to approximately 54 % of users being unable to access the selection process⁴⁷.

77

As all the information published stemmed from the Commission’s ad hoc requests to the Member States, the exercise had to be repeated each time a new update had to be provided to the Council and/or published. For such information provided by Member States on a voluntary basis, the Commission has no legal mandate to carry out reliability and/or plausibility checks. This raises a potential risk of unreliable or incorrect information being included in the update reports provided to the Council. However, also for data which were reported under the ESF framework, checks were not always effective (see Box 12).

Box 12

Example of imprecise data communicated to stakeholders

According to the March 2014 YAT update, as regards the Portuguese ‘Impulso jovem’ initiative, the Commission stated that: ‘In Portugal … 143 million euro of ESF have been reallocated … and the whole amount committed until the end of 2013. 56 000 young people have been covered’. However, this appears to be a target value to be reached rather than the achievements so far. In fact, the OP’s financial execution data, and the data reported in the 2013 annual implementation report related to the Human Potential OP, refer to fewer than 10 000 young people which were covered.

20Article 10 of Regulation (EC) No 1081/2006. Articles 66 to 68 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006. Annex XVIII to Commission Regulation (EC) No 1828/2006 of 8 December 2006 setting out rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund and of Regulation (EC) No 1080/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Regional Development Fund setting out rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund and of Regulation (EC) No 1080/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Regional Development Fund (OJ L 371, 27.12.2006, p. 1).

21Annex XXIII to Commission Regulation (EC) No 1828/2006.

22The 2014 ESF Expert Evaluation Network report on main ESF achievements in 2007-2013 concludes that ‘Although comprehensive data are available on outputs for each of the Member States, the position for results is much less favourable. Even for three key results — job entry, qualifications achieved and self-employment — it was not possible to obtain the absolute numbers on a consistent basis for a number of Member States. In the absence of absolute numbers, it is not possible to generate aggregate figures across Member States for the results associated with ESF-supported interventions’ (paragraph 5 of the Executive Summary).

23ECA Special Reports No 3/2000, No 12/2001, No 1/2006, No 17/2009 and No 25/2012 (http://eca.europa.eu).

24COM(2010) 477 final of 15 September 2010,‘Youth on the move: an initiative to unleash the potential of young people to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in the European Union’, p. 16.

25European Commission Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion ‘The European Social Fund: giving young people a better start in life’, December 2011.

26Annex IV to Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006.

27COM MEMO 12/100, 14 February 2012.

28For example, using the regular and systematic assessment carried out by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) on medium- and long-term skills forecasting at EU level, broken down by sector, occupations, level of qualification and countries or the ongoing research of International Labour Organisation and European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound).

29For example, the ‘country fiche’ for Ireland identified amongst the groups of young people mostly affected by unemployment those under 35 (without tertiary education); the ‘country fiche’ for Spain referred to ESF measures targeted to unemployed aged 25 or over; and the ‘country fiche’ for Portugal referred also to the age range of 25-29.

30Eurostat’s analysis of employment data shows a negative relationship between the unemployment rate and job vacancies, illustrating the job-matching functions well (‘Beveridge curve’). This was the case for EU-27 Member States until the first quarter of 2010. Afterwards, an increase in vacancies did not have any effect on unemployment rates. Source: Eurostat, ‘Skills mismatches and labour mobility’, 28.5.2013.

31Internal documents of the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion: 'Draft working paper for YOI', 8 February 2012); 'Modernisation of public employment service and active labour market policies in Spain', October 2011, p. 9.

32’Assessment of youth-oriented activities in Latvia’, document delivered by Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion to the Court in the context of this audit.

33Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion YAT mission report for meeting on 22 February 2012 in Italy.

34Secretariat-General’s operational conclusions sent to the Permanent Representative of Spain to the EU on 14 May 2012.

35Secretariat-General’s operational conclusions sent to the Permanent Representative of Greece to the EU on 14 May 2012.

36European Commission Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, ‘Youth employment initiative and the European Social Fund, European Social Fund thematic paper’, March 2014.

37The ESF resources reported by the Commission include for Italy a reallocation of national funds to measures combating youth unemployment which was made possible via the reduction of the national co-funding rate for ESF and ERDF OPs. The financial resources then released of more than 1.5 billion euro were invested within a nationally funded cohesion action plan, in a series of initiatives, including several benefiting young and unemployed people.

38Article 48 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006.

39COM MEMO 12/100, 14 February 2012.

40The Italy (Sicily) youth employment plan was proposed on 19 December 2011 (i.e. before the YATs initiative) in the context of the Italian cohesion plan. The youth employment plan consists of 452 million euro in national resources made available as a result of the increase in the ESF co-financing from the EU budget for the Sicily ESF OP in order to avoid de-commitment.

41Regarding Slovakia, the youth action plan was not directly a result of the YAT exercise. Its drafting had started earlier in the context of the national reform programme and implementation of the amended VET law.

42In the case of Slovakia the target group included unemployed young people under the age of 29, but also disadvantaged people over 50 years. The exact amount allocated to support young people and the number of jobs to be created per target group were not specified.

43Level seven and level eight of the Quadro Nacional de Qualificacões.

44In the context of which the YATs exercise took place.

45In 2012 no annual examination meeting was held for Ireland.

46Vocational education and training for youth, support of the acquisition of professional skills and the provision of micro-credits.

47Regione Sicilia, Decreto del Dirigente Generale Numero 4567 dated 18 August 2014.

Conclusions and recommendations

78

We concluded that the effectiveness of the advisory support provided by the Commission to the Member States in relation to the YATs was limited by the level and quality of information available to it on how existing ESF or national measures for young unemployed people work on the ground (see paragraphs 25 to 37). Moreover, the Commission’s assessment of the OP amendments proposed by Member States focused mainly on budgetary aspects rather than on the best use of these ESF funds (see paragraphs 58 to 61). Finally, there were shortcomings in how the Commission reported on the result of the YATs initiative until 2014 (see paragraphs 73 to 77).

The Commission provided advisory support to Member States but was limited by the level and quality of information available

79

The YATs initiative could not meet the high expectations raised at the informal meeting of the 2012 European Council, not least due to the limitations in information available to the Commission on the basis of the monitoring and reporting arrangements set out in the regulations for the 2007-2013 programme period. This meant that the Commission did not have:

οan overview of the existing ESF-funded youth employment measures and which ones were successful in terms of their targeted and actual results at Member State level. Such information could have helped make practical and short-term proposals on how to redirect ESF funds to measures which had proved effective in the past or elsewhere;

οcomplete and up-to-date information on the available ESF funding that could be potentially reprogrammed or reallocated.

80

As part of its preparatory action the Commission has prepared ‘country fiches’ for each of the eight Member States concerned. It has also coordinated the meetings of the YATs and prepared operational conclusions in terms of ESF reprogramming and reallocation. While these were both positive contributions of the Commission, they were carried out subject to the limitations mentioned above.

81

Our analysis also showed that the youth action teams set up in the eight Member States made limited specific proposals on how to achieve faster and more effective results for young unemployed people. A broader-based, more sustained and longer-term initiative would be required to develop dedicated national youth action plans of the type envisaged by the Commission and enable Member States to use Structural Funds effectively to support their efforts to reduce the levels of youth unemployment.

Recommendation 1

For future initiatives of this kind, the Commission should take due account of the possibilities and constraints given by the political and legal context, its specific knowledge and expertise of the area (based on the implementation of EU and nationally funded measures) and the availability of the financial resources at EU and Member State level.

While the youth action teams initiative led to ESF reprogramming and reallocation, the assessment of the Commission on OP amendments focused mainly on budgetary aspects

82

According to information provided by the Member States to the Commission, the total amount of reprogrammed and reallocated ESF funds in seven of the eight Member States which carried out the exercise totalled 1.9 billion euro by June 2013. Providing an exact overall figure is however difficult since not all of this ESF reprogramming is necessarily a consequence of the YATs initiative, but could be due to other reasons.

83

Following the YATs meetings and in relation to their operational conclusions, all Member States prepared youth action plans or considered these aspects in their national reform programmes, although they were general in nature in both cases. Any reprogramming of ESF funding required in this context can only be introduced by the Member State concerned through a proposal to amend the relevant OPs. The Commission is required then to assess the justification provided by the Member State and approve the change if satisfied.

84

We found that, when assessing the Member States’ requests for amendments to the sampled OPs, the Commission did not examine whether the reprogrammed ESF funds were more likely to help young people to ’find a job or increase their employability’ than the measures initially planned. Instead, its assessment focused mainly on the budgetary aspects of the reprogramming exercise. On the basis of the information that the Member States provided to the Commission we concluded that it is also not possible to assess to what extent the specific needs of the different groups of young unemployed people were targeted by the reprogrammed and/or reallocated ESF funds in 2012.

Recommendation 2

For the 2014-2020 programme period, the Commission should:

(a)ensure that future reprogramming requests from Member States are triggered by an expectation of achieving better results rather than mainly resolving difficulties in absorbing EU funds;

(b)approve the Member States’ requests for OP amendments only if the additional results to be obtained through the proposed budgetary transfers can reasonably be achieved;

(c)require Member States to report in sufficient detail both extraordinary transfers within operational programmes and changes within priorities in their annual implementation reports and present the results achieved;

(d)participate actively in OP monitoring committees and encourage Member States to take the appropriate steps where it is clear from its assessment of the annual implementation reports that the targets will not be met.

Shortcomings in the Commission’s reporting to the Council on the impact of the youth action teams initiative

85

As the Commission was aware of the limitations of the information provided systematically by the Member States under the ESF monitoring arrangements, for the purpose of preparing regular updates to the Council on the progress of the initiative, it had made ad hoc requests for information to be provided by Member States. For such information provided by Member States on a voluntary basis, the Commission has no legal mandate to carry out reliability and/or plausibility checks. However, also for data which was reported under the ESF framework, checks were not always effective.

86

As a result, the analysis of the information provided to the Council showed some shortcomings in terms of completeness, consistency and reliability. Furthermore as there are no systematic checks carried out by the Commission on the information that has been provided by the Member States there is a potential risk of unreliable or incorrect statements being included in the update reports provided.

Recommendation 3

When using data provided by Member States in its communications the Commission should ensure that minimum plausibility and reliability checks are systematically carried out.

This Report was adopted by Chamber II, headed by Mr Henri GRETHEN, Member of the Court of Auditors, in Luxembourg at its meeting of 11 November 2015.

For the Court of Auditors

Vítor Manuel da SILVA CALDEIRA
President

Reply of the Commission

Executive summary

I

Common Commission reply to paragraphs I, II, III and IV:

Youth unemployment has been a widespread problem in many Member States during the last decade. The YAT, although an ad hoc instrument, has had the merit to put this problem, exacerbated by the economic crisis, high on the European political agenda.

This new awareness has led to a number of concrete actions both at EU and Member State level including in particular the ‘Youth guarantee’ and the ‘Youth employment initiative‘ (YEI). The ‘Youth employment package’ (2012), a follow-up to the wider employment package, included a proposal to establish a youth guarantee. This resulted in a recommendation adopted by the Council in April 2013.

This has also led European leaders to take concrete steps on the financial side: namely by launching the YEI (2013). It aims to support in particular young people not in education, employment or training in regions with a youth unemployment rate above 25 %. The YEI, together with the ESF, has provided the Member States with targeted funding to start putting the ‘Youth guarantee’ into practice.

IV

The Commission notes that the amounts of ‘available’ ESF funds estimated by the Member States had been indicative, depending in particular on already launched calls for proposals and contracting arrangements under the relevant operational programmes.

V

In the Commission’s view, the YATs initiative has met the political expectations set out by the European Council in its conclusions of 30 January 2012. The key objective of the joint YATs — an ad hoc, punctual initiative — was to mobilise EU and national instruments, including Structural Funds, and to discuss policy reforms to be included in youth job plans. The teams were meant to ‘shake the tree’ by raising awareness at the highest political level, creating a sense of urgency and giving a stronger steer while not creating additional administrative or/and legal procedures.

Also, the Commission considers that the YATs made an important contribution by paving the way for new initiatives to combat youth unemployment, including the ‘Youth guarantee’, the YEI and the improved 2014-2020 programming of the ESF, with an increased focus on young people.

The Commission proactively used all the instruments available to it, given the legal framework in place, to achieve the objectives of the YATs initiative and to report on them.

While for funds implemented under shared management the Commission may not always have detailed information on all supported measures and one of the objectives of the YATs meetings was precisely to double-check with Member States the estimates of available ESF funding, making sure that the best and most up-to-date information was used, the Commission provides advice and guidance including on the basis of information obtained and policy assessment carried out in the context of the European Semester.

As regards the appropriateness of the measures funded, the typical measures for youth employment supported by the ESF being training, work experience, hiring subsidies, further learning and education, the approach had been to steer Member States to boost the well-performing ones among these measures.

In its regular reporting to the European Council, the Commission, based on the information provided by Member States, reported a number of positive developments following the YATs' mobilisation in terms of launched measures on the ground, national budget support and number of young persons supported. The Commission considers that funds that were reprogrammed to increase the financial support to well-functioning youth programmes represented a clear improvement in the EU’s support to young people.

Concerning monitoring, the Commission notes that under shared management, Member States are responsible for setting up monitoring and reporting systems and for ensuring their reliability, subject to Commission audits. The Commission had at its disposal information from the reporting required by the ESF regulation. In addition, as the YATs were a political exercise and announced as such from the outset, the Commission also collected data informally, through questionnaires and requests for information, as well as through other policy processes, notably the European Semester. For such information, the Commission has no legal mandate to carry out reliability and/or plausibility checks.

VI First indent

The Commission accepts this recommendation.

In its actions, the Commission always takes into consideration the political, legal, financial and administrative context. In the particular case of the YATs initiative, the Commission was aware that it would face several constraints. However, this was not a reason for inaction: given the unacceptable unemployment situation of young people, the Commission was determined to take whatever action was possible to improve the situation.

As a rule, the Commission systematically bases exercises such as this on the expertise gathered with the implementation of the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), and in particular the European Social Fund, and also its participation in the European Semester.

VI Second indent (a)

The Commission accepts this recommendation and considers that the current legal framework contains the necessary requirements.

The 2014-2020 ESIF legal framework already goes a long way in providing the conditions for ensuring better value for money. This is to be achieved, inter alia, via a performance framework and reserve, ex ante conditionalities and common output and result indicators. The use and programming of the ESIF are furthermore tightly linked to the EU’s strategy for growth and jobs and country-specific recommendations.

Article 30 of the CPR requires that OP amendments be accompanied by a justification from the Member State concerning the expected impact on the achievement of national Europe 2020 targets as well as the OP specific objectives.

In addition, Article 23 of the CPR allows the Commission, on its initiative, to request that a Member State propose amendments to its operational programmes with a view to ensuring compliance with Council recommendations in the context of the European Semester and thus to ensure that the ESIF support the relevant growth and jobs priorities at national or regional level.

The Commission notes that the supervision of any budgetary/absorption issues is also part of the Commission's supervision role.

VI Second indent (b)

The Commission accepts this recommendation and also considers that the current legal framework contains the necessary requirements.

Article 30 of the CPR explicitly requires that upon assessment by the Commission of the Member State justification and upon a request for further information, the Member State shall provide to the Commission all necessary additional information. In addition, specific additional rules apply to OP amendments related to allocation of the performance reserve.

VI Second indent (c)

The Commission accepts this recommendation and also considers that the current legal framework contains the necessary requirements.

The CPR envisages reporting as part of Article 50 annual implementation reports on all relevant performance aspects. The Member States are also required to report on the basis of the categories of intervention as set out in the relevant Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 215/2014.

VI Second indent (d)

The Commission accepts this recommendation and is of the view that this is already current practice, given also the specific remit of its participation in the monitoring committee.

VI Third indent

The Commission accepts this recommendation. Indeed, in the context of shared management, the Commission checks, among other things, the robustness of the systems for recording and storing the accounting records and the data on implementation provided by the Member States. This is done typically through system audit work carried out by both the Commission and the national audit authorities.

In the 2014-2020 period, the CPR provides for the ESF/YEI managing authority to collect, store and record reliable data on indicators in a computerised system (Article 125(2)(a), (d) and (e)), subject to audits by the Commission.

Introduction

09

The Commission proposed to set up action teams in the Member States where youth unemployment was significantly above the EU average — this proposal was endorsed by the European Council. At the time, the EU average was 22.3 % so a reference rate of 30 % was chosen and eight Member States qualified for this action — this rate was consistent with the European Council statement. The Commission considers that it acted in line with the European Council’s statement.

Observations

Common Commission reply to paragraphs 25 and 26

The Commission is only entitled to monitor EU funding according to the provisions set out in the regulations and the Member States have considerable discretion as regards the reporting of performance information. While there was indeed a common (compulsory) output indicator for youth, Member States also reported on the results achieved yearly in the annual implementation report based on the specific indicators defined in the OP for each priority axis, while these specific indicators did not allow for aggregation at EU level. In all cases, the Commission has complied with these provisions.

27

The Commission considers that a sufficient number of indicators exist, albeit specific to each OP, allowing for a proper monitoring by the Commission.

The issue identified in the expert evaluation network study stems primarily from the fact that unlike reporting on output indicators, reporting on result indicators for specific measures was not mandatory. Therefore comprehensive and consistent data on result indicators are not available. The introduction of common output and result indicators for the 2014-2020 programming period will remedy this issue.

28

The IAS report referred to by the Court concludes that certain existing weaknesses stem from the legal framework on which the Commission bases its work by definition. The IAS report also recognises the significant improvement in performance requirements introduced with the 2014-2020 legal framework. In 2007-2013 managing authorities were required to define specific result indicators and to set targets in the operational programmes. This was subject to negotiations when programming the operational programmes. The Commission acknowledges that aggregation at EU level has thus been a challenge, but considers its monitoring at operational programme level as appropriate. Furthermore, the Commission has carried out a study to analyse all specific result indicators and used the knowledge gained to propose common result indicators for 2014-2020 and has set up an evaluation network to try to bring together monitoring and evaluation evidence from managing authorities to provide information on performance for the desks and the reporting by the Commission.

29

The Commission notes that, through their regular bilateral contacts with the managing authorities, their assessment of the annual implementation report and participation in the meetings foreseen by the regulation but also with policy departments in the Member States in the framework of the European Semester cycle, the Commission desk officers are informed of the advancement and ‘good practices’ of the OP implementation. Thanks to their analysis of various specific indicators, they are well aware of the effectiveness of the implementation of the different OPs.

Moreover, the Commission launched several evaluations of policies for 2007-2013 period which will be available by mid 2016. All these evaluations will provide useful evidence on the achievement of the programmes. In addition, specific volumes focusing on lessons learnt and good practices will be part of the final reports.

Common Commission reply to paragraphs 30 to 32

The Commission's report was an overview on the basis of questionnaires to the managing authorities — i.e. on the basis of the Member States' own assessment of what worked well as a good practice. The aim of the report was to disseminate policy ideas and practices in order to ‘inspire’ policymakers. The report was not meant to provide an evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of ESF interventions

34

The Commission notes that one of the purposes of the YATs meetings was precisely to identify with the Member States more precisely what EU funding would be available and what more could be done to address the needs of the young unemployed.

35

In the context of shared management, the relevant specific details regarding operations are available at Member State level since they are responsible for the launch and implementation of the various calls for applications. Despite the objective limitations of the 2007-2013 legal framework, the Commission has proactively sought to collect on a more regular basis relevant information from the Member States on ESF support to youth employment measures in connection with other EU-wide initiatives on youth employment.

36

The Commission notes that its estimates were based on data voluntarily submitted by Member States. These estimates were only the starting points of the bilateral discussions and were systematically updated on the basis of the real situation of the individual Member States.

37

The Commission acknowledges that a technical error was made for Slovakia. However, the discussion at the YAT meeting took place on the basis of the correct figures.

38

The Commission notes that in the context of preparing the YATs meetings, any assessment should be based on what the Commission announced, committed to and realistically could have delivered, within the agreed timeframe and the current legal framework.

40

The Commission considers that the objective of the YATs was not to provide ex ante analyses to Member States pertaining to specific groups of young people, nor examinations of future skills requirements.

Moreover, the Commission’s analysis of labour market needs is not limited to the country fiches, which as briefing documents were used as background notes to the YATs bilateral meetings. The geographical desk officers prepare detailed country reports and analyse in-depth the situation of employment and social policies in the Member States, which then feed into the formulation of the country-specific recommendations. Tackling youth unemployment involves a comprehensive approach and the country fiches present consistent data and policy not only on employment issues, but also on various other critical aspects, such as education.

From the identification of the Member States with the highest youth unemployment rate to the subsequent analysis and discussions, the standard Eurostat definition of young people was used (age 15-24). However, the whole rationale of the YATs was to ensure the most appropriate country specific action, so in certain instances, some flexibility in the definition was applied where this was justified by national circumstances.

41

The role of the YATs was to examine opportunities for swift action in order to respond to the immediate impact of the crisis. Skills mismatches are a structural problem and ESF OPs had already been programmed, back in 2006, with a view to tackling structural issues of the labour markets. However, this track towards structural reform has been severely hampered by the economic crisis, with drastic increases in unemployment rates across the EU. Therefore, while the YATs had a mission to seek immediate solutions both financially and in terms of policy implementation, the overall parallel thrust of Commission efforts was to steer Member States back towards the path of reforms.

In addition, a major part of collecting specific policy information is carried out by the Commission in the context of its analytical work on the European Semester analysis, and published in the Commission/country reports. The Commission furthermore bases itself on a number of expert reports, and examples of DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion internal policy reports, notably the so-called country reports, elaborated in the context of the European Semester.

42

The Commission notes that the eight country fiches suggested policy guidelines based on an analysis of labour market needs, underpinned by a variety of sources, in particular based on the Commission analytical work in the context of the European Semester.

43

See Commission reply to paragraph 41.

44

In Italy, the situation of the labour market was particularly difficult for young people. The country fiche did identify some groups of particular concern, including high and medium educated after graduation, but the initiatives followed a global approach to tackle the situation in a comprehensive way.

The choice of the transfer of management of the funds (as for all the other YATs initiatives) clearly had a two-fold objective: raising human capital levels (to ease employment) and accelerating expenditure (given, as stated in the country fiche, that ‘problems in Italy do not relate to priorities in spending but to delays in implementation’).

45

The Commission notes that any assessment of the outcome of the YATs needs to take into account the objectives and purpose of the YATs missions and the ESF regulatory framework.

47

The core of the YATs missions was to, by way of high-level political discussions, identify ways for national authorities to reallocate funding to projects that would make the biggest difference in a short time. This entailed notably agreeing on how to deal with competing ESF priorities, but did not involve entering into the technicalities of fund management. The meetings represented the occasion to explore different possibilities, which had to be verified technically in light of the specificities of each OP.

Before any reprogramming could be done, it was necessary to discuss with the Member States the extent to which the ESF funds could be redirected towards youth programmes.

For instance, in the case of countries with large number of OPs, such as Italy, any detailed proposal had to be checked for applicability with respect to the situation (implementation, results) of each OP (e.g. which OP to reprogramme, for how much, etc.).

49

The Commission considers that the Secretariat-General’s summary operational conclusions should not be read in isolation. In the specific case of Greece, technical assistance was already very intense because of the financial assistance programme and the Secretariat-General’s operational conclusions suggested the expansion/reinforcement of existing initiatives in the form of policy guidelines and set the grounds for further elaboration on specific measures responding to identified needs. The operational outcome of the YATs was the ‘Action plan of targeted interventions to strengthen youth employment and entrepreneurship’, adopted by Greece in December 2012.

Furthermore, Member States already receive detailed country assessments and policy recommendations from the Commission in the context of the European Semester.

50

The Commission refers to its reply to paragraphs 29, 44 and 47.

Where relevant, specific changes to calls for tender and selection criteria were discussed in the context of monitoring committee meetings where the Commission plays an advisory role. The Commission considers that the added value of the proposed initiatives was not exclusively assessed in relation to their expected impact on absorption.

51

The Commission notes that the OP modifications were not always entirely related to youth employment measures as such. They were often part of broader reallocations of funding towards employment measures in general. In addition, in the context of the YATs, the Commission’s advisory role went beyond considerations of financial reallocations.

53

In order to provide a complete picture of the financial outcomes of the YAT initiative, the Commission considers that it is also necessary to include the information on the financial resources devoted to youth-linked initiatives resulting from the reduction of national co-financing in ESF and ERDF OPs. For instance, in the case of Italy, those resources, resulting from OP reprogramming, financed a series of initiatives (including the ‘Youth plan’ in Sicily) encompassed in the national cohesion action plan. According to Italy, they account for about an additional 1.5 billion euro and have been part of the reallocated funding reported on Italy throughout the YATs exercise.

54

The Commission acknowledges the technical mistake, which has however a very limited impact on the overall amount (below 4 % on the overall ESF amount, below 1.2 % when considering the overall YAT budget including the Italian cohesion action plan).

56

Under shared management Member States are responsible for setting up monitoring and reporting systems and for ensuring their reliability.

60

The Commission considers that increasing the financial support to youth programmes (training etc.) that were already delivering on the ground is better than having the money lost because of automatic de-commitment. The programmes that were strengthened had already been assessed at the time of their adoption and their implementation was in line with the requirements of the regulations.

As regards the appropriateness of the measures funded, the typical measures for youth employment supported by the ESF being training, work experience, hiring subsidies, further learning and education, the Commission’s approach had been to steer Member States to boost the well-performing ones among these measures. In the overall youth unemployment context in 2011 (overall low employment and increasing inactivity rates, in particular for the NEETs), one of the key objective of the Commission was also to increase the coverage in terms of participants in measures that potentially could improve young persons' employability on the labour market. Last but not least, all of the above measures also remain crucial under the ‘Youth guarantee’, which the ESF also financially supports.

Common reply to para 64 and Box 7

The Commission stresses that the priority groups discussed at the bilateral meeting of the YAT were both highly qualified young people and young people with basic education. These two groups were also targeted by the Portuguese youth action plan, called ‘Impulso Jovem’ and the corresponding reprogramming of the OP.

Common reply to 65, 66, 67 and Box 8

The Commission notes that the NRPs are strategic documents under the sole responsibility of Member States. They do not aim at describing which measures would be supported by EU Funds as a result of the YAT meeting.

The Commission monitors the situation of young people on the labour market in the context of the European Semester, which aims at strengthening and promoting policy reforms for the benefit of EU citizens. In that context, the Commission provides an in-depth analytical assessment in country reports and proposes policy actions in the form of draft country-specific recommendations. Under the 2015 European Semester, five Member States received the recommendations aiming at adopting more ambitious policy measures in this area.

68

The Commission notes that, in order to keep the administrative burden for Member States to an absolute minimum and deliver fast results, the YATs were implemented and monitored in accordance with the ESF legal provisions.

70

The Commission notes that the information provided in relation to indicators' targets depends on the overall context of the OP modification proposed and whether it is specifically linked to youth employment or more broadly, to boosting employment measures for all target groups under the OP overall.

For instance, in the case of Greece, monitoring indicators for youth were already included in operational programmes.

71

The Commission notes that the annual review meeting minutes are not the only source of information in relation to OP regular monitoring by the Commission.

Common Commission reply to paragraph 72 and Box 9

The Commission does sometimes question the plausibility of specific indicators' values reported in the annual implementation report. Also, the Member States’ computerised systems are subject to systems audits by the Commission and the Member States’ audit authorities.

The Commission acknowledges that there was one technical error in the information provided by the Lithuanian managing authority.

73

The Commission had at its disposal information from the reporting required by the ESF regulation. In addition, as the YATs was a political exercise and announced as such from the outset, the Commission also collected data informally, through questionnaires and requests for information, as well as through other policy processes, notably the European Semester.

No formal monitoring and reporting process that went beyond the ESF monitoring framework could be put in place for the YATs.

75

The reports to the European Council provided a general overview of the state of implementation of the YATs, on the basis of the data collected ad hoc from the Member States. See also the Commission’s reply to paragraph 68.

76

See Commission reply to paragraph 72.

Also, the reporting made by the Commission was based on information provided by Italy. Regarding the delays which have been significant in particular in the start-up phase of the national plan, the Commission urged quick implementation whenever possible.

77

Under shared management, Member States are responsible for setting up monitoring and reporting systems and for ensuring their reliability. The Commission checks the robustness of the systems through its audits.

Conclusions and recommendations

Common Commission reply to paragraphs 78 and 79

In the Commission's view, the YATs initiative has met the political expectations set out by the European Council in its conclusions of 30 January 2012. The key objective of the joint YATs was to mobilise EU and national instruments, including Structural Funds, and to discuss policy reforms to be included in youth job plans. The YATs focused on the challenges identified in the targeted Member States. The teams were meant to ‘shake the tree’ by raising awareness at the highest political level, creating a sense of urgency and giving a stronger steer while not creating additional administrative or/and legal procedures.

The Commission proactively used all the instruments available to it, given the legal framework in place, to achieve the objectives of the YATs initiative and to report on them. The experience of the YATs also contributed to the design of new policy initiatives, such as the youth employment package, and in that context, the ‘Youth guarantee’ Council recommendation. Furthermore, the close monitoring of the situation in the eight Member States concerned (as well as other Member States with high levels of youth unemployment) through the normal processes of the European Semester has entailed country-specific recommendations (CSRs) related to youth employment. In its regular reporting to the European Council, the Commission, based on the information provided by Member States, reported a number of positive developments following the YATs' mobilisation in terms of launched measures on the ground, national budget support and number of young persons supported.

79 First indent

While for funds implemented under shared management the Commission may not always have detailed information on all supported measures, it provides advice and guidance including on the basis of information obtained and policy assessment carried out in the context of the European Semester.

79 Second indent

One of the objectives of the YATs meetings was precisely to double-check with Member States the estimates of available ESF funding, making sure that the best and most up-to-date information was used.

80

The Commission considers that country fiches needed to be of a general nature, since they summarise the analysis that the Commission regularly carries out on labour market developments (e.g. the annual ‘Employment and social developments in Europe’ report, the annual ‘Labour Market and wage developments’ report and the ‘EU employment and social situation quarterly review’).

81

Given the urgency of the youth employment situation, the Commission and the European Council decided to launch an ad hoc, punctual initiative which in particular resulted in a fast redirection of available ESF funds to youth-related measures.

Also, the Commission considers that the YATs made an important contribution by paving the way for new initiatives to combat youth unemployment, including the ‘Youth guarantee’, the YEI and the improved 2014-2020 programming of the ESF, with an increased focus on young people.

Recommendation 1

The Commission accepts this recommendation.

In its actions, the Commission always takes into consideration the political, legal, financial and administrative context. In the particular case of the YATs initiative, the Commission was aware that it would face several constraints. However, this was not a reason for inaction: given the unacceptable unemployment situation of young people, the Commission was determined to take whatever action possible to improve the situation.

As a rule, the Commission systematically bases exercises such as this on the expertise gathered with the implementation of the European Structural and Investment Funds, and in particular the European Social Fund, and also its participation in the European Semester.

82

The Commission agrees that a stable overall figure is difficult to provide, given that the Commission can only access the formal OP modification decisions and that the amounts available within an OP or a Member State for redirection within or across OPs has evolved dynamically, depending on the level and speed of contracting of projects and the advancement of OP implementation overall.

84

The Commission considers that funds that were reprogrammed to increase the financial support to well-functioning youth programmes represented a clear improvement in the EU support to young people. The actions strengthened in this way had in any case been selected, implemented and monitored in line with the rules and were thus considered to deliver positive results, even where it was too early to undertake a fully fledged evaluation.

As regards the appropriateness of the measures funded, the typical measures for youth employment supported by the ESF being training, work experience, hiring subsidies, further learning and education, the approach had been to steer Member States to boost the well-performing ones among these measures.

Moreover, the Commission refers to its replies to paragraphs 60, 72 and 76.

Recommendation 2 (a)

The Commission accepts this recommendation and considers that the current legal framework contains the necessary requirements.

The 2014-2020 ESIF legal framework already goes a long way in providing the conditions for ensuring better value for money. This is to be achieved, inter alia, via a performance framework and reserve, ex ante conditionalities and common output and result indicators. The use and programming of the ESIF are furthermore tightly linked to the EU’s strategy for growth and jobs and country-specific recommendations.

Article 30 of the CPR requires that OP amendments be accompanied by a justification from the Member State concerning the expected impact on the achievement of national Europe 2020 targets as well as the OP’s specific objectives.

In addition, Article 23 of the CPR allows the Commission, on its initiative, to request that a Member State propose amendments to its operational programmes with a view to ensuring compliance with Council recommendations in the context of the European Semester and thus to ensure that the ESIF support the relevant growth and jobs priorities at national or regional level.

The Commission notes that the supervision of any budgetary/absorption issues is also part of the Commission's supervision role.

Recommendation 2 (b)

The Commission accepts this recommendation and also considers that the current legal framework contains the necessary requirements.

Article 30 of the CPR explicitly requires that upon assessment by the Commission of the Member State justification and upon a request for further information, the Member State shall provide to the Commission all necessary additional information. In addition, specific additional rules apply to OP amendments related to allocation of the performance reserve.

Recommendation 2 (c)

The Commission accepts this recommendation and also considers that the current legal framework contains the necessary requirements.

The CPR envisages reporting as part of Article 50 annual implementation reports on all relevant performance aspects. The Member States are required to report also on the basis of the categories of intervention as set out in the relevant Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 215/2014.

Recommendation 2 (d)

The Commission accepts this recommendation and is of the view that this is already current practice, given also the specific remit of its participation in the monitoring committee.

Common Commission reply to paragraphs 85 and 86

Under shared management, Member States are responsible for setting up monitoring and reporting systems and for ensuring their reliability.

The Commission checks the reliability of the data provided by the Member States through its audits.

In the 2014-2020 period the CPR provides for the ESF/YEI managing authority to collect, store and record reliable data on indicators in a computerised system (Article 125(2)(a), (d) and (e)), subject to audits by the Commission.

Recommendation 3

The Commission accepts this recommendation. Indeed, in the context of shared management, the Commission checks, among other things, the robustness of the systems for recording and storing the accounting records and the data on implementation provided by the Member States. This is done typically through system audit work carried out by both the Commission and the national audit authorities.

In the 2014-2020 period the CPR provides for the ESF/YEI managing authority to collect, store and record reliable data on indicators in a computerised system (Article 125(2)(a), (d), and (e)), subject to audits by the Commission.

QJ-AB-15-021-EN-E    ISSN 1977-5679

In 2012, youth action teams composed of experts from the competent national authorities and from the Commission were established for the eight Member States experiencing particularly high levels of youth unemployment. The action teams had the objective of helping these Member States make the best use of EU structural funding by directing unallocated funds (including European Social Funds of around 10 billion euro) from the 2007–2013 programming period to projects that supported job opportunities for young people and facilitated access to funding by small businesses.
Through this audit the Court assessed the extent of the redirection exercise in relation to the unallocated ESF funding and the contribution made by the youth action teams in this regard in helping national authorities reallocate funds to projects that would make the ‘biggest difference in the shortest time’.