EN
E-001649/2022
Answer given by Mr Hahn
on behalf of the European Commission
(20.7.2022)
1. Public health is a shared competence between Member States and the Commission. The role of the Commission is to support, coordinate or supplement Member States actions. During the pandemic it stepped in – with the agreement of Member States – to provide support and a coordinated approach to ensure the procurement, on behalf of the Member States, of COVID 19 vaccines. However, national public health strategies, decisions and any advice Member States may seek on these matters from external consultants is their prerogative. The Commission has no competence in this regard and does not have information on which consultants were used by Member States during the COVID 19 crisis.
2. The annex shows the contracts awarded to McKinsey in 2017-2021 published in the Commission’s Financial Transparency System (FTS)1.
3. FTS consists of annual publications that are made available on the website in June of the year following the financial year in which the funds were legally committed as required by Article 38(5) of the Financial Regulation. Each annual publication is preceded by an extensive exercise ensuring the completeness and accuracy of the data, and involving all the Commission’s responsible departments and Executive agencies managing directly and/or indirectly funds from the EU budget and the European Development Fund (EDF). The last publication was made on 29 June 2022 with the 2021 data. On 14 October 2021 the Commission updated the financial data on consumption2, disclosed on the FTS, and published information on 2020 projects implemented indirectly by international organisations or non EU countries (‘indirect management’). Another update of the consumption was carried out on 20 May 2022.
1 The FTS (https://ec.europa.eu/budget/financial-transparency-system/index.html) makes available information on recipients of funds (final recipient for funds directly managed by the Commission and as of financial year 2020 intermediate beneficiaries for funds implemented indirectly by EU partners e.g. international organisations or non-EU countries. In accordance with Article 38(3) of the Financial Regulation (OJ L 193, 30.7.2018, p. 1–222), data on recipients is not disclosed for very low value contracts below 15 000 EUR and where disclosure risks threatening the rights and freedoms of the persons or entities.
2 Consumption indicates the evolution of payments on a given commitment, updated every three months. For more information, see https://ec.europa.eu/budget/financial-transparency system/faq.html (question 7).
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