Ivica Galovic / PIXSELL Minister Marić did not establish control over the spending of EU money 17 Sep 2020 8:37Author: Orchid Gaura Hodak Nacional reveals what is disputable in the system of controlling the spending of EU funds and why the Government could be hit by OLAF , and soon the new European Public Prosecutor, because of the billions of euros yet to arrive in Croatia to fight the consequences of coronavirus and earthquakes M inister of Finance Zdravko Maric in four years the term of office has not yet established a system of independent control of spending of EU funds, it is a system that could control the use of funds from the EUfunds, but also those institutions that are nominally in charge of control. This is crucial because the allocation of funds is often decided from the political level, ie decisions on the creation of criteria for allocating funds for individual projects include policy, ie policy-related individuals, so often funds are allocated in a non-transparent manner to eligible ones. there is no institution above them that can control this well. More precisely, there is one service responsible for this, but it, unlike similar services in some other European countries, does not have adequate authority to do so. That is why it is possible that various 'Josip Rimac and Ana Mandac' are happening in the system, only at the EU level .funds. However, Minister Marić is not interested in resolving this issue at all, so Croatia could come under attack from OLAF , but also from the new European Public Prosecutor ", a dramatic warning was sent to Nacional by a high-ranking source close to the Government and judicial institutions, worried about the bad image At the level of the European Commission, it could be attributed to Croatia if it is revealed how weak the system of control over the spending of EU funds is at the momentfunds that could further worsen the image of Croatia as a country where corruption flourishes, which stems daily from numerous scandals that reach the media, such as the affair with Josip Rimac, which showed that the entire state system is permeated from top to bottom with corruption. In this case, it is precisely the lack of an independent body that would control potential cases of state corruption, corruption that is shaped precisely from the position of state institutions, or networked individuals in these institutions. Due to the billions of euros that Croatia will receive through new EU instruments to combat the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the money intended for the reconstruction of the City of Zagreb, the Government of Andrej Plenković will face a new big problem. Spending European billions also means very strict control through OLAF , the European Anti-Fraud Office, and will soon be further strengthened through the newly formed European Public Prosecutor's Office - which should cooperate with Croatian institutions. However, in the Republic of Croatia there are no sufficiently developed mechanisms for independent control of irregularities in the spending of money from European funds, so the Government could very soon be hit by OLAF.but also the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which should be operational early next year. Otherwise, OLAF investigates fraud related to the budget of the EU -a, corruption and serious violations within the European institutions and develops policy to combat fraud. It is part of the European Commission, but is operationally independent. In this case, it is an additional control over the use of EU funds based on reports coming from outside, which imply possible irregularities and fraud that failed to detect regular bodies from the system of management and control of EU funds , in whose job description. And there are more and more such reports from outside and they raise the question of possible abuses of positions and powers of responsible persons in the institutions responsible for the management and control of the use of EU funds