2020 EU Budget: Performance report highlights swift and global EU response to the coronavirus crisis while supporting key EU priorities

10 Jun 2021 01:03 PM

The EU budget has helped ensure a swift and comprehensive EU response to the coronavirus crisis and its consequences, while supporting overarching EU priorities. This involved mobilising financial resources rapidly and flexibly to address the most pressing needs, without making any compromise on applying the highest standards of financial management.

The Commission presents two complementary pieces on EU budget performance reporting:

• an Annual Management and Performance Report for the EU budget
• and a forward-looking Communication on the performance framework for the EU long-term budget 2021-2027.

The first document – the Annual Management and Performance Report – has shown that, despite its relatively small size, the EU budget is capable of achieving major results, and can play a critical role in times of crisis. The robust internal control framework of the Commission ensured that the EU budget remained well and effectively protected throughout the year.

The performance framework – the subject of the second document – will make sure that the European Commission preserves the strong focus on the achieved results in the future, starting from the effective implementation of the current multiannual financial framework, complemented by the NextGenerationEU recovery instrument. Taken together, the two represent the largest stimulus package ever financed from the EU budget.

Johannes Hahn, Commissioner in charge of the EU Budget and Administration, recently said:

“2020 was an extremely challenging year due to the coronavirus pandemic but once more, the EU demonstrated its ability to cope with this challenge. Thanks to the EU budget, the EU put forward an unprecedentedly swift and comprehensive response to help overcome the health, economic and social repercussions of the pandemic, while extending our solidarity well beyond our borders. While fighting the pandemic, we kept our focus on our priorities and met all our budgetary goals, including in terms of climate and biodiversity. As for the forthcoming years, the Commission has a great responsibility to continue to implement effectively the long-term EU budget and NextGenerationEU. Even in times of crisis it remains our objective to maximise the effectiveness of EU spending besides continuing to deliver for EU citizens and partners beyond.”

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