Coalition for open, fair, and accountable public spending in the EU

In view of Russia’s military action against the Ukrainian people, being concerned about ensuring that European funds are spent as effectively as possible and in order to facilitate monitoring of the activities of sanctioned individuals and their associates: we call on the European Union and its Member States to take urgent steps to increase the transparency of spending of public funds, and we demand immediate action to deliver long-promised and genuine transparency of Beneficial and Company Ownership Registries.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility is the largest contribution to Member States in the history of the European Union. Their aim is to support reforms, infrastructure and the improvement of the quality of life of millions of EU citizens. We all have a responsibility to ensure that it is spent transparently and for its intended purpose. At the same time, the regulations introducing the RRF at EU level have not guaranteed full openness of spending. For this reason the Open Spending EU Coalition has produced Guidance to show Member State governments what detailed information should be published about the spending of these funds. The Guidance can also be used by civil society organisations, journalists, and others who want to persuade their governments to be more transparent about how public money is spent. The Coalition will support such actions and will work towards their implementation. In the publication we also presented recommendations addressed to the European Commission. We believe that the best solution that supports openness of EU funds is centralised and transparent information about them.

Transparent and open RRF spending is attainable and realistic. To support the European Commission and Member States in establishing the right mechanisms for this, the Open Spending EU Coalition has come up with concrete, practical recommendations. These recommendations focus on exactly what should be published proactively, and how this information can be published to facilitate multi-stakeholder participation and monitoring. Our guide is designed for all such scenarios, providing recommendations which can form the basis of a new open spending initiative and/or serve to inform strengthening of pre-existing transparency. The document is open to public consultations. We welcome any feedback by adding a comment in the text by 20th December 2021.

The Open Spending EU Coalition today urged Poland and Hungary to include strong guarantees of transparency in their National Plans under the Recovery and Resilience Facility Fund (RRF) and called on the European Commission to ensure that such transparency is clearly stated before approving the plans.

Open Spending EU Coalition analysed the transparency, reporting and accountability measures put in place to ensure open and accountable implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility national plans of 22 EU member states.

Access Info together with its partners in the pan-European project ACT! have presented a range of technical solutions for local governments to increase their levels of transparency and prevent any risk of corruption, covering the following areas: whistleblowing, access to information, open data in public procurement, transparency of meetings involving public officials and risk analysis.

The move allowed the government, civil society and journalists to investigate spending and solve problems. Based on this success, Lithuania is now moving to put open data and open government at the heart of its new procurement reforms.