Ms Paola Lo Bue Oddo:

The specific provisions will be present in each loan agreement. We will ensure that we have access to any information, including classified information, that is necessary for the purposes of verifying the disbursement of the payments and carrying out checks, reviews, audits, investigations, reports, controls and any other audits. In that sense, we need to have access to information related to the loans.

Any loan payments we make to the member states will be made in instalments. The request for the instalments will be submitted, which has to be based on a duly justified request for payment. Once the Commission receives this duly justified request for payment, we assess it and decide whether to disburse the payment. If we assess that the request is not duly justified and that there are some issues related to controls and audits, we can make a negative assessment, which means the payment of the loan can be suspended partially or fully. In that sense, there will be specific provisions in each loan agreement. Articles 12, 14 and 21 in the SAFE regulation clearly explain that we have strong safeguards in this regard.