EU Commission conclusions on the changeover to the Euro in Slovakia

The European Commission has issued a Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the European Central Bank giving an overview over the changeover process to the Euro in Slovakia in January of this year.

The communication paints the picture of a rather successful process, without major problems.

I'd just like to quote some parts of the document I find relevant and noteworthy (bold headlines are my formulations):

Conclusions for future changeovers

"In order to speed up the changeover and thus reduce the burden put on retailers who have to handle two currencies simultaneously, the change should be given exclusively in euro as of 1 January. It could be considered for future changeovers to introduce a legal prohibition on the use of the legacy currency for giving change (with an exception for cases where it is materially impossible to use the euro)."

As regards inflation

"Provisional calculations estimate the total (one-off) impact of the changeover on headline inflation during and immediately after the changeover to be within the range of up to 0.3 percentage points"

"January data from the Commission's Consumer Survey show that inflation perceptions have not been affected by the changeover. Perceived inflation remained on its downward trend and reached 21.7 pp in January, down from 25.6 pp in December. In February, perceived inflation went down further, to 18.7 pp. In the context of declining HICP inflation, it is indeed more difficult to disentangle the impact of the euro changeover on inflation perceptions."

The implication of the Commission in the information campaign and the results

"The communication campaign on the introduction of the euro started in 2007 with the launch of a national euro website and free telephone help line and the organisation of seminars and conferences. A fully fletched communication campaign started in spring 2008. [...]

It was supported by a massive distribution of publications and euro calculators to all households, a constantly updated (and massively visited) website, specialised projects for schools and journalists, a train-the-trainers programme and a 'Euromobile' bringing up to date information to remote areas. [...]

The Commission supported the campaign in technical and financial terms. This included the provision of publications and promotional material, the organisation of exhibitions, seminars for journalists and opinion polls. Via several grants, the Commission financed a part of the salaries of communication staff, the media campaign, the national help line and website, the project for schools, the programs for multipliers, the euro calculators and the 'Euromobile'. [...]

When asked about persisting information needs [in the January 2009 Eurobarometer; JF], some 31 % of Slovaks wished to learn more about the security features of euro banknotes and coins (4 in 10 respondents could not name any security feature at the time of the survey), 22% wanted to know more about fair rounding of prices while 19% wished to have more information on how to avoid being cheated in the currency conversions."

Out now: European Court of Auditors Report for 2007 - supplemented

There it is: The European Court of Audiors report for 2007 (PDF). I won't be able to give a full account of the 300 pages, but let's have a look on some specifics.

According to the press release, the area most affected by misspending is social cohesion:

As in previous years cohesion policies (42 billion) are the area most affected by errors. Following the Court's sample estimate at least 11 % of the value of reimbursed cost claims should not have been paid out.

If I understand this correctly, then the European Union is spending more than 4.5 billion Euros to much on its social cohesion policy. Or in other words: A lot!

One of the reasons for misspending seem to be overly complicated legal and administrative provisions:

The Court also calls for due consideration to be given to simplification - for example in rural development and research. Well designed rules that are clear to interpret and simple to apply decrease the risk of error.

This is also the main point that the President of the Court of Auditors, Vítor Caldeira (CV), stresses in his speech: He asks for further simplification.

But regarding simplification, I would like to point out that neither the report, nor the press release, nor the published speech by the Court's president are very citizen-friendly - neither in terms of presentation nor in terms of language.

What do we learn? We learn that some things are better than in the past; we learn that the EU is spending too much money in several areas; we learn that the control mechanisms can be improved; and we also learn that a balance between efforts and results of control has to be maintained. Interesting, but rather empty.

All in all, the report lacks an executive summary, and it lacks a clear presentation of past shortcomings and necessary future changes.

Is anyone expecting citizens or smaller non-governmental organisations to comb through this technical language? - You may ask why? Well, maybe because it concerns all of us, and maybe because a simplification of the presentation would ease our understanding of how the European Union and its institutions are (not) working.

But maybe, this is yet just another administrative document, and we should not care about it too much, right?!

Supplement:

The EUobserver article covering the reports brings some interesting voices, inter alia from Commissioner Kallas, that demand a tougher stand of the Commission towards the member states when it comes to the mismanagement of funds.


Related articles:
- Daniel Hannan: "EU budget rejected"
- Me: EU budget committee criticises EU agencies
- Me: Boring: The European Ombudsman and his 2007 report

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By the way: If you would like to be the next Secretary General of the Court of Auditors - now is the time!