Q. May a Member State directly apply financial corrections to any irregularity and not only in the case of State aid?

A. The Managing Authority shall in the first instance be responsible for preventing and investigating irregularities and for making the financial corrections required and pursuing recoveries. At the same time, participating countries shall prevent, detect and correct irregularities, including fraud and the recovery of amounts unduly paid, together with any interest […] on their territories, according to the article 31 of the ENI CBC IR. It is necessary to make sure that this is correctly reflected in the financial report of the programme.

Therefore, a participating country (including Member States) can initiate a financial correction, based on the irregularities detected and according to the procedure of the programme. However, the final decision-making body on the amount of the correction is the Managing Authority, according to article 71 of the ENI CBC IR.

On the other hand, in the case of State aid, article 31.5 of the ENI CBC IR mentions the obligation of the recovery by Member States. The recovery order should be issued following a decision on the correction in accordance with the procedure indicated in the paragraphs above, that is, the Member State will only pursue the recovery when the financial correction is decided by the Managing Authority, even if the procedure was initiated by the Member State.