Content of the website
On this website you can find the names of the beneficiaries of funds awarded (in budgetary terms:
"committed") by the Commission every year.
The Financial Transparency System publishes only the beneficiaries of the following sources of funding:
- EU budget directly administered by the Commission's departments,
its staff in the EU delegations, or through executive agencies;
- EU budget implemented indirectly by international organisations or
non-EU countries ('indirect management');
- European Development Fund.
The following funding types are published on this site:
- Grants
- Prizes (as of financial year 2013)
- Public procurement (including provisional commitments) (as of
financial year 2013)
- Public procurement including other expenditure (financial years
2011 and 2012)
- Financial Instruments (as of financial year 2013)
- Budget Support (as of financial year 2013)
- External Experts (as of financial year 2013)
Data for any given year is not published until the following year. Search results include:
- Who receives the funds (beneficiary)
- Subject, i.e. the purpose of the expenditure
- Where the beneficiary is located (country, if they are natural
persons the information on location is limited to region according to the NUTS2 classification, post code)
- Amount and type of expenditure (operational vs. administrative)
- Which responsible department (directorate-general (DG) or agency)
awarded the funding
- Which part of the EU budget (budget line) it comes from
- When (year) the amount was booked in the accounts
The following will also be given, if available:
- Type of action, usually the relevant EU programme
- Coordinator – the beneficiary responsible for redistributing funds
in a multi-beneficiary project.
Please note that important changes had to be implemented in the Financial Transparency System (FTS) following
the entry into force of the EU new Financial Regulation and its rules of application. These have an impact on
the publication of financial year 2012 data onwards. The main changes are as follows:
- No information on public procurement contracts lower than EUR 15 000
will be published. In practice the number of items may decrease substantially. It may happen that
information on a given beneficiary was provided through FTS in 2011, but it is not provided for 2012 even
though the sums contracted by the same beneficiary were similar in volume on both occasions.
- There will be no more confidential names of beneficiaries, where
the text "confidential" or "natural person" appeared instead of the beneficiary´s name. The publication
shall be waived if the disclosure risks threatening the rights and freedoms of individuals concerned as
protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union or harm the commercial interests of the
beneficiary. There are several other newly introduced minor alterations. You will find additional
information on the FTS in the FAQ and Help sections of this web site.
Confidentiality
Please note that a small number of beneficiaries are not published on this website for security
reasons.
Multiple beneficiaries
In the case of multiple beneficiaries of the same grant or other support scheme, the system will list
all of them, providing the amounts per beneficiary, if this information is available.
Legal Background
The basic requirement for the Commission to publish this information on beneficiaries of EU funds is given in
Article 38 of the financial regulation applicable to the general budget of the Union: Article 38
Publication of information on recipients and other information.
Article 38
- The Commission shall make available, in an appropriate and timely manner,
information on recipients of funds financed from the budget, where the budget is implemented by it in
accordance with point (a) of the first subparagraph of Article 62(1). The first subparagraph of this
paragraph shall also apply to other Union institutions when they implement the budget pursuant to Article
59(1).
- Save in the cases referred to in paragraphs 3 and 4, the following
information shall be published, having due regard for the requirements of confidentiality and security, in
particular the protection of personal data:
- The name of the recipient;
- The locality of the recipient, namely:
- The address of the recipient when the recipient is a legal
person;
- The region on NUTS 2 level when the recipient is a natural
person;
- The amount legally committed;
- The nature and purpose of the measure.
The information referred to in
the first subparagraph of this paragraph shall only be published for prizes, grants and contracts which
have been awarded as a result of contests, grant award procedures or procurement procedures, and for
experts selected pursuant to Article 237(2).
- The information referred to in the first subparagraph of paragraph 2
shall not be published for:
- Education supports paid to natural persons and other direct support
paid to natural persons most in need as referred to in point (b) of Article 191(4);
- Very low value contracts awarded to experts selected pursuant to
Article 237(2) as well as very low value contracts below the amount referred to in point 14.4 of Annex
I;
- Financial support provided through financial instruments for an
amount lower than EUR 500 000;
- Where disclosure risks threatening the rights and freedoms of the
persons or entities concerned as protected by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union or
harming the commercial interests of the recipients.
In the cases referred to in point (c) of the
first subparagraph, the information made available shall be
limited to statistical data, aggregated in accordance with relevant criteria, such as geographical
situation, economic typology of recipients, type of support received and the Union policy area under
which
such support was provided. Where natural persons are concerned, the disclosure of the information
referred
to in the first subparagraph of paragraph 2 shall be based on relevant criteria such as the frequency or
the type of the measure and the amounts involved.
- Persons or entities implementing Union funds pursuant to point (c) of the
first subparagraph of Article 62(1) shall publish information on recipients in accordance with their rules
and procedures, to the extent that those rules are deemed equivalent following the assessment carried out by
the Commission pursuant to point (e) of the first subparagraph of Article 154(4), and provided that any
publication of personal data is subject to safeguards equivalent to those set out in this Article. Bodies
designated pursuant to Article 63(3) shall publish information in accordance with sector-specific rules.
Those sector-specific rules may, in accordance with the relevant legal basis, derogate from paragraphs 2 and
3 of this Article, in particular for the publication of personal data, where justified on the basis of the
criteria referred to in the third subparagraph of paragraph 3 of this Article, and taking into account the
specificities of the sector concerned.
- The information referred to in paragraph 1 shall be published on the
websites of Union institutions, no later than 30 June of the year following the financial year in which the
funds were legally committed. The websites of Union institutions shall contain a reference to the address of
the website where the information referred to in paragraph 1 can be found if it is not published directly on
a dedicated website of Union institutions. The Commission shall make available, in an appropriate and timely
manner, information about a single website, including a reference to its address, where the information as
provided by the persons, entities or bodies referred to in paragraph 4 can be found.
- Where personal data are published, the information shall be removed two
years after the end of the financial year in which the funds were legally committed. This shall also apply
to personal data referring to legal persons whose official name identifies one or more natural persons.
The Financial Regulation
Data Protection
The European Commission maintains this website in order to make available information on beneficiaries of EU
funds. Information contained in this website are processed in accordance Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April
2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free
movement of such data. However, if errors are brought to our attention, we will correct them in line with the
protection of personal data principles.