Debate on the Changes Introduced in the European Audit for Agricultural Subsidies at the Conference organised by Seresco and Qcom.es

Debate on the new guidelines of the compliance procedure of subsidies and the estimations to reduce the number of financial corrections during the upcoming years.

Seresco, a Spanish company specialised in technological solutions and ICT services, and Qcom.es, an agri-food website, have organised the confrence “El papel de la Unión Europea en los controles y auditorías de las ayudas europeas (The Role of the European Union in the Controls and Audits for European Funding)”. The conference’s purpose was to discuss the new European framework for the audits of the CAP subsidies, which will become effective next January 2017.

Christina Borchmann, Expenditure Audit Director of the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission, presented the new guidelines for the acceleration of compliance procedures in the Member States and the improvement of risk estimation for subsidies In this sense, Borchmann has pointed out that, in order to guarantee the precision and accuracy of the accounts, the European Commission will establish higher financial corrections if the detected mistakes in the allocation of European funds are not corrected within a period of 2 years.

Ignacio Sánchez, President of the Spanish Agrarian Guarantee Fund (FEGA) and Manuel Busto, Seresco’s CEO, also participated in the conference. Manuel Busto underlined the role of the company, «which has been supporting the different players in both the private and the government-funded agrarian sectors for over 30 years, providing them with technological advances relevant to their needs.»

Currently, Seresco offers ICT services and collaborates with different public administrations in the development of technological solutions for the optimization of the agricultural sector. The company has also developed Cultiva Decisiones, a groundbreaking technological platform for precision viticulture that helps in the decision-making process, monitoring grape growing from the origin.

The conference was held in Madrid and gathered the main representatives of the agricultural sector in both Public Administration and the Autonomous Communities, as well as professionals from the national certification bodies.