Study Outcomes

The outcomes of FIES research are collected in a Study ("FIES Final Report"), an open-access publication, and a technical Annex reserved for the E. Commission / OLAF.

FIES Final Report suggests a frame to protect the Financial Interests of European Scale through a preventive system based on specific properties, some of which are summarized as the followings:

  1. EU common standards and risk methodology settled on systematic (not episodic) preventive measures consistent with the potential risks in managing ESI funds through PPP contracts and financial instruments;
  2. a national level under which managing and awarding authorities are expected to implement the EU common standards by adapting them to the specific characteristics of the action (co)financed by ESI funds;
  3. an alerting and reporting system shared by all institutional levels (Commission/OLAF – national authorities and managing/awarding authorities). 

To this extent, EU standards should require managing and awarding authorities to map (ex-ante) areas where discretionary decision-making is performed and, in particular, to set out:

(a) the discretionary decisions related to the administration of ESI funds until the awarded PPP contract or financial instrument management is going on in its performance or the relevant targets have been reached; 

(b) a list of tangible measures to mitigate the risk eventually related to each discretionary decision; 

(c) the administrative benchmarks to be compared to the corresponding evidence taking place while ESI funds are managed until the ultimate target has been reached; 

(d) the alerting/reporting system to eventually point out relevant outbreaking gaps ("threshold") or by comparing expected to tangible measures, circumstances, or data. In case of significant gaps, it would be possible to drive audit actions on the specific procedure in due time to overview whether the practice is consistent with the EU common standard or requires more insightful analysis. The threshold of alert could be set as a common standard itself. 

Under that view, the (confidential) Annex to the Study reports a list of tangible risk indicators ("alert signals") for PPP contracts or financial instruments. The list of possible hands has been based on the FIES Study outcomes, and a table outlines - for each supposed discretionary decision - the risk description, the alert signaling, and a list of possible preventive mitigating measures. Currently, the proposed scheme is only available for EU Institutions to support future policies to protect the public interests at stake.