1. Financial Transparency System (FTS)
EU DATATHON 2017
#EUdatathon – 11 November 2017
Concrete example of open data initiative
DG Budget, unit C6 Financial reporting and strategy
Olivier Juvyns

2. What is the Financial Transparency System (FTS)
Online database, available on Europa, providing information on recipients of EU funds implemented directly by the Commission between 2007 and 2016
Specifies the names and locations of the thousands of recipients which were allocated a total of more than EUR 195 billion during this period.
Recipient: any natural or legal person that signs a grant agreement, a procurement contract, …

3. Why is the FTS important
Part of the European Transparency Initiative (ETI) launched in The Commission committed itself as follows:
"For centrally managed expenditure … (to) focus on improving and harmonising the presentation of the data on beneficiaries, currently presented in very different formats across DGs“
Legal requirement, publication by June N+1
Article 35 of the financial regulation applicable to the general budget of the Union
It is one of the European Commission's most important tools to increase EU funding transparency.

6. Why is the FTS interesting
FTS is a centralised database
containing commitment positions,
for a total of more than EUR 195 billion,
from its inception in 2007 until now (2016).
FTS is a popular tool
400 queries per day
Reused by the general public, researchers, journalists, MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), colleagues
FTS produces open data
FTS search engine, full dataset downloadable
Also published on the Open Data portal

7. How do we produce the data
FTS uses data from the Commission's financial and accounting application "ABAC"
ABAC (Accrual Based Accounting System) is the financial and accounting application set up by the Commission, to monitor the execution of its budget and to prepare its accounts.

8. What are the limitations of the FTS
Exhaustivity
Contains information only on recipients of EU funds directly managed by the Commission, around 20% of EU Budget
In practice, around 80% of the EU budget is managed by national or regional governments (under the so-called 'shared management' mode). EU Member States are thus responsible for publishing data on the beneficiaries of the funds they administer. These data are not published on the FTS but on national websites.
Difficult to categorise spending
such as consultancy and until recently NGOs
Since 2016 NGO search is available, based on self-declarations by entities
Since 2016 NGO and PFPO search is available. In the absence of a universally applied definition of NGO, the Commission considers as NGO any non-profit, non-public law body (NFPO) independent of public authorities, political parties and commercial organisations. The NGO information that the Commission has available is based on self-declarations by entities receiving funding from EU funds through grant agreements or contracts directly managed by the Commission. These self-declarations are mainly requested for statistical purposes and are not subject to a general validation by Commission services. However, the non-profit status of an entity (NFPO), that is practically an essential element of an NGO, is subject to validation as this criterion can be objectively assessed through the non-profit making legal form of the entity.

9. What are the limitations of the FTS
Difficult to compare with other sources
We publish legal obligations signed in the selected financial year
commitment appropriations which are legal pledges to provide finance, provided that certain conditions are fulfilled. The subsequent payments (not published on the FTS), can therefore be spread over more than one year and the total amount paid out may be smaller.
Repartition for each recipient is not always known
the estimated amount for matching beneficiaries represents the sum of the indicative share for each beneficiary when this information is available depending on the type of agreement and in accordance with the Financial Regulation. As the actual share may evolve over the lifespan of a project the amounts published are indicative.
The FTS website lets you search through the beneficiaries of funding from the EU budget implemented directly the Commission (at Headquarters or in EU delegations to non-EU countries) and other EU bodies such as executive agencies ('direct management'), and beneficiaries of the European Development Fund.
Please note that the FTS does not provide information on funding from the EU budget implemented by both the Commission and Member States ('shared management'), or implemented indirectly by other international organisations or non-EU countries ('indirect management').
Up to 80% of the EU budget expenditure is managed by Member States under shared management in areas such as agriculture, cohesion policy, growth and employment.

10. What's next Specification of the EU Spending Vocabulary
the availability of information in a machine-readable format as well as a thin layer of commonly agreed metadata could facilitate data cross-referencing and interoperability. Therefore, the value for reuse of the data would be considerably enhanced.
The goal is to publish the data that is currently available on the FTS as Linked Open Data on the EU Open DataPortal, so that it can be enriched with data from other data sets. As a first step, the data will be linked to the EU Budget.
The FTS website lets you search through the beneficiaries of funding from the EU budget implemented directly the Commission (at Headquarters or in EU delegations to non-EU countries) and other EU bodies such as executive agencies ('direct management'), and beneficiaries of the European Development Fund.
Please note that the FTS does not provide information on funding from the EU budget implemented by both the Commission and Member States ('shared management'), or implemented indirectly by other international organisations or non-EU countries ('indirect management').
Up to 80% of the EU budget expenditure is managed by Member States under shared management in areas such as agriculture, cohesion policy, growth and employment.

11. EU DATATHON 2017
"Reusing European Union open data for jobs and growth"
What could the dataset reveal?
Could it be better presented, in a more interactive way?
Mobile app potential improvements?
Important to keep in mind
Integrity of the data is essential
Data integrity is the maintenance of, and the assurance of the accuracy and consistency of, data over its entire life-cycle, and is a critical aspect to the design, implementation and usage of any system which stores, processes, or retrieves data. (Wikipedia)
Context information should always be provided
What is included, what is excluded
In order to prevent comparability issues (only 20% of EU expenditure)
The FTS website lets you search through the beneficiaries of funding from the EU budget implemented directly the Commission (at Headquarters or in EU delegations to non-EU countries) and other EU bodies such as executive agencies ('direct management'), and beneficiaries of the European Development Fund.
Please note that the FTS does not provide information on funding from the EU budget implemented by both the Commission and Member States ('shared management'), or implemented indirectly by other international organisations or non-EU countries ('indirect management').
Up to 80% of the EU budget expenditure is managed by Member States under shared management in areas such as agriculture, cohesion policy, growth and employment.

12. Comparability issues: should we keep track of and monitor data being reused?

13. Thanks for your attention! Any question: BUDG-FTS@ec.europa.eu
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