EU Pillar Assessment

Becoming an implementing partner with the European Commission under indirect management

December 2019 3

EU Pillar Assessment Pillar assessments are institutional compliance assessments which the European Commission requires partner organisations to pass before using indirect management cooperation with them.

What is a Pillar Assessment?

As stipulated in the EU Financial Regulations, the European Commission can decide to entrust implementing partners with budget implementation tasks. For organisations to become eligible, they must meet certain conditions and must pass an assessment of their main operations by an independent auditor.

The Pillars Assessment aims to assess the organisation’s compliance with the Commission’s requirements for indirect management. Since the introduction of revised Terms of Reference for Pillar Assessments by the European Commission in April 20191, up to 9 pillars may be assessed.

The first three pillars, covering the organisation’s internal procedures are mandatory to be assessed, whereas it is up to the Entity to define the remaining pillars that need to be assessed based on what is relevant to its operations.

1 Commission Decision of 17 April 2019 on establishing new terms of reference for the pillar assessment methodology to be used under Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 of the European Parliament and of the Council EU Pillar Assessment 4 The results of the assessment are summarised in an assessment report which concludes on the organisation’s compliance with requirements for each pillar. The European Commission will use the independent auditor’s assessment report as a basis for its decision to enter into indirect management with an implementing partner.
1 – Internal Control
2 – Accounting System
3 – External Audit
4 - Grants
5 – Procurement
6 – Financial Instruments
7 – Exclusion from access to funding
8 – Publication of information on recipients
9 – Protection of Personal Data

EU Pillar Assessment methodology etc...

https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_be/topi...