This study offers a comparative assessment of the frameworks for governance and oversight of selected EU trust funds (EUTFs) and the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRT). It explores how these EUTFs and the FRT add to and ‘mix’ the instruments set up under the EU Multiannual Financial Framework. It addresses the issue of their added value in light of the EU Better Regulation guidelines, their impact on the role of the European Parliament as a budgetary authority and the right to good administration. The study recommends reducing the complexity of the EUTF and FRT governance frameworks, and strengthening their consistency with the EU’s cooperation efforts in third countries and EU Treaty values. Finally, it recommends reinforcing the avenues for democratic accountability, fundamental rights and rule-of-law impact assessments, which would have the salutary effect of enhancing trust.
This study was requested by the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control and is posted in this pre-release version with the kind permission of the Parliament. The study was presented by Sergio Carrera and Jorge Núñez Ferrer at meetings convened 20 March 2018 by the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT – – more information here), and on 21 March 2018, at the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets (BUDG).
Sergio Carrera is Senior Research Fellow at CEPS. Leonhard Den Hertog is former Research Fellow at CEPS (giving input into this study at the first research stage, until 20 November 2017). Jorge Núñez Ferrer is Senior Research Fellow at CEPS. Roberto Musmeci, Researcher at CEPS. Marta Pilati was (at the time) CEPS Research Trainee, and Lina Vosyli?t? is Researcher at CEPS.
