Arachne : Be instinctive

The European Commission has developed Arachne, a risk-scoring tool addressed to the managing authorities and intermediate bodies for projects funded by the European Social Fund, European Regional Development Fund and Cohesion Fund that is seen as one of the tools for ‘effective and proportionate anti-fraud measures’ according to Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013. In addition, Arachne can boost the effectiveness and efficiency of management verifications and help to reduce the error rate and detect and prevent potential irregularities in projects or contracts. More than 100 adapted risk indicators and a wide network of linkages between individuals and organisations generate alerts about irregularities and risks of fraud during the selection and approval of operations, as well as during their implementation. Managing authorities and intermediate bodies can use these alerts to better target their administrative efforts to guarantee sound financial management of European Union funds. Although different tools can constitute an ‘effective and proportionate anti-fraud measure’, the adoption of Arachne presents remarkable advantages for Member States. As a result of its investment in world-class technical capacity since 2009, the European Commission has already produced a final product. It can also provide technical assistance in supplying data from your own database to Arachne, come and install the system on the spot and offer training at your request. The European Commission is convinced of the positive legal and financial impacts that the implementation of this tool will represent for the first-level control of the programmes. Therefore, we warmly encourage all managing authorities and intermediate bodies implementing these projects to adopt Arachne