The European Commission disclosed, on 2 July, the list of EU funds recipients in 2009, providing more detail than in previous years through the Financial Transparency System (FTS). The FTS, launched in 2008, is an online search engine that users can access to get information on the recipients of Commission funding. The executive, legally required to publish this information under Article 30(3) of the Financial Regulation for the EC, controls around 20% of the EU budget, and information can be found about policy areas, such as research, education and culture, energy and transport or external aid. The vast majority of funds, including such policies as the CAP and fisheries, are handled by national administrations and it is up to them to disclose.

This year is the first time the database includes Commission procurement contracts for daily administration. “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,” said Janusz Lewandowski, the commissioner for budget and financial programming, who also noted that the FTS has been upgraded to allow for more search options. The entries are taken directly from the Commission budget and are strictly the amounts committed rather than the amounts actually paid, which can be found in the financial report issued annually by the Commission. The database now contains more than 114,000 entries dating back to 2007, though some information on particular grants is masked, often for security reasons.

The FTS is available at ec/europa.eu/beneficiaries/fts/index_en.htm