On Tuesday 28 June, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) will publish a special report on the use of data for the design, monitoring and evaluation of the EU’s flagship agriculture policy, the CAP.
FOR PRESS
- The report and press release will be published on the ECA website eca.europa.eu at 5.00 p.m. CET on Tuesday 28 June.
- A virtual press briefing will be held at 10.30 a.m. CET on Tuesday 28 June. It will be given by Joëlle Elvinger, the ECA member responsible for this report.
- To register for the press briefing and for media queries, please contact the ECA press office: press@eca.europa.eu
ABOUT THE TOPIC
The CAP accounts for more than a third of the EU’s budget – €408 billion between 2014 and 2020 – and helps the European Commission support member states’ activities with objectives, often inter-related, ranging from securing food production and strengthening environmental protection to maintaining farmers’ livelihoods and developing rural areas.
Globally, organisations are making increasing use of big data. Agriculture is a sector where digital innovations are increasingly being applied: data on farms in the EU is created and collected through various means, including administrative registers and surveys, mobile phone apps, satellites, drones and precision machinery.
ABOUT THE AUDIT
The auditors assessed whether the Commission has sufficient data and makes good use of data analytics for policy design, monitoring and evaluation of the CAP. This assessment is relevant both for the CAP starting in 2023 and for the post-2027 CAP.
The report mainly looks at the Commission’s directorate-general for agriculture (DG AGRI), but will also give examples for some countries, including Spain, Netherlands, Ireland and Estonia.
The ECA’s special reports set out the results of its audits of EU policies and programmes or management topics related to specific budgetary areas. The ECA selects and designs its 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.