The European Commission has disclosed who in 2009 received EU funds in policy areas like research, education and culture, energy and transport or external aid.
The European Commission has disclosed who in 2009 received EU funds in policy areas like research, education and culture, energy and transport or external aid. The online database, now containing more than 114 thousand entries going back to 2007, has been upgraded to allow more search options. It now also provides information on Commission administrative expenditure.
Janusz Lewandowski, EU commissioner for budget and financial programming, said: “Very few public administrations in the world have gone that far with financial transparency. We provide European citizens with an easy access to detailed information on who benefited from our grants and contracts. I believe this will contribute to better accountability and better quality of EU spending.''
Financial Transparency System
The Financial Transparency System (FTS), launched in 2008, discloses information on the beneficiaries of budget lines managed directly by the Commission and its executive agencies. The data are accessible through a web-based search engine with various search criteria such as the country of the beneficiary, the name of the programme or the amount.
The information is extracted from the Commission's accounts and is based on the financial amounts committed in the budget for a given beneficiary. This year for the first time the database includes Commission procurement contracts for its day-to-day administration.