e-Cohesion — electronic and paperless administration

KEY POINTS

Regulation (EU) No 1011/2014 sets out:

• a standard format for the notification of a selected major project by the managing authority to the Commission in accordance with the first subparapgraph of Article 102(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 (in Annex I);
• a model for transmission of financial data in accordance with Article 112 of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 (in Annex II);
• a model for the description of the functions and procedures in place for the managing authority and the certifying authority (in Annex III);
• models for the audit report and the opinion of the independent audit body referred to in Article 124(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 (in Annexes IV and V);
• a model for the payment application including additional information concerning financial instruments referred to in Articles 41,131 and 135 of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 (in Annex VI);
• a model for the accounts referred to in Article 137 of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 (in Annex VII).

Electronic data exchange systems¹ between beneficiaries and managing managing authorities, certifying authorities, audit authorities and intermediate bodies (e-Cohesion) must allow administrative checking of each application for reimbursement by beneficiaries. Paper documents may only be requested in exceptional cases, following a risk analysis, and only if paper documents are the true source of the scanned documents uploaded in the electronic data exchange systems. Document and data exchange includes reporting on progress, payment claims and exchange of information related to management verifications and audits.

Electronic data exchange systems must:

• ensure data security, data integrity, data confidentiality, and sender authentication;
• be operational at all times, except during maintenance;
• have at least the following functionalities:
  • forms prefilled with data stored at consecutive steps of the procedures;
  • automatic calculations where applicable;
  • automatic embedded controls which reduce repeated information exchange, as far as possible;
  • system-generated alerts to inform the beneficiary that certain actions can be carried out;
  • online status tracking allowing project status monitoring;
  • availability of all previous data and documents processed by the electronic data exchange system.

Regulation (EU) No 184/2014

In accordance with Article 74(4) of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013, all official exchanges of information between EU countries and the Commission must be carried out using an electronic data exchange system. Regulation (EU) No 184/2014 establishes the terms and conditions for that electronic data exchange system (SFC2014).

SFC2014 will be accessible to EU countries and the Commission either directly through an interactive user interface (a web application) or through a technical interface using pre-defined protocols (web services) that allows for automatic synchronisation and transmission of data between EU countries’ information systems and SFC2014. The regulation also sets out the operational and data security requirements when using SFC2014.

The Regulation also sets out the nomenclature for categories of intervention referred to in Article 8(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1299/2013 in an Annex, as well as the other codes to be attributed to the operations.