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1. The Member States, when implementing the Plans, as beneficiaries of funds under the Fund, shall take all the appropriate measures to protect the financial interests of the Union and to ensure that the use of the financial allocations in relation to measures and investments supported by the Fund, including those carried out by public or private entities other than vulnerable households, vulnerable micro-enterprises and vulnerable transport users in accordance with Article 9, complies with applicable Union and national law, in particular regarding the prevention, detection and correction of fraud, corruption and conflicts of interests. To that effect, the Member States shall provide an effective and efficient internal control system as further set out in Annex III and the recovery of amounts wrongly paid or incorrectly used. Member States may rely on their regular national budget management systems.

2. The agreements referred to in Article 19 shall provide for the following obligations of the Member States:

(a) to regularly check that the financing provided has been properly used in accordance with all applicable rules and that any measure or investment under the Plan has been properly implemented in accordance with all applicable rules, in particular regarding the prevention, detection and correction of fraud, corruption and conflicts of interests;

(b) to take appropriate measures to prevent, detect and correct fraud, corruption, and conflicts of interests as defined in Article 61 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 affecting the financial interests of the Union and to take legal action to recover funds that have been misappropriated, including in relation to any measure or investment implemented under the Plan;

(c) to accompany a payment request by:

(i) a management declaration that the financial allocations were used for its intended purpose, that the information submitted with the payment request is complete, accurate and reliable and that the internal control systems put in place give the necessary assurances that the financial allocations were managed in accordance with all applicable rules, in particular rules on avoidance of conflicts of interests, fraud prevention, corruption and double funding from the Fund and other Union programmes in accordance with the principle of sound financial management; and (ii) a summary of the audits carried out in accordance with internationally accepted audit standards, including the scope of those audits in terms of amount of spending covered and period of time covered and an analysis of the weaknesses identified and any corrective action taken;

(d) for the purpose of audit and control and to provide for comparable information on the use of financial allocations in relation to measures and investments implemented under the Plan, to collect, record and store in an electronic system and ensure access to the following standardised categories of data:

(i) name of the final recipients of the financial allocations, their VAT registration numbers or tax identification numbers and amount of the financial allocations from the Fund;

(ii) name of the contractor(s) and sub-contractor(s) and their VAT registration number(s) or tax identification number(s) and value of the contract(s) where the final recipient of the financial allocations is a contracting authority in accordance with Union or national law on public procurement;

(iii) first name(s), last name(s), date(s) of birth and VAT registration number(s) or tax identification number(s), of beneficial owner(s) of the recipient of the financial allocations or contractor, as defined in Article 3, point (6), of Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council ();

(iv) a list of any measures and investments implemented under the Fund with the total amount of public funding of those measures and investments and indicating the amount of funds paid under other funds financed from the Union budget;

(e) to expressly authorise the Commission, OLAF, the Court of Auditors and, in respect of those Member States participating in enhanced cooperation pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2017/1939, the EPPO, to exert their rights as provided for in Article 129(1) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 and to impose obligations on all final recipients of the financial allocations paid for implementing the measures and investments included in the Plan, or to all other persons or entities involved in their implementation to expressly authorise the Commission, OLAF, the Court of Auditors and, where applicable, EPPO to exert their rights as provided for in Article 129(1) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 and to impose similar obligations on all final recipients of funds disbursed;

(f) to keep records in accordance with Article 132 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046, the point of reference being the payment transaction relevant to the respective measure or investment.

The information referred to in point (d)(ii) of the first subparagraph of this Article shall be required only where the value of public procurement is greater than the Union thresholds set out in Article 4 of Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (). Regarding subcontractors, that information shall be required only:

(a) for the first level of sub-contracting;

(b) where that information is recorded regarding the respective contractor; and (c) for sub-contracts with a total value greater than EUR 50 000 .

3. Personal data as referred to in paragraph 2, point (d), of this Article shall be processed by Member States and by the Commission for the purpose, and corresponding duration, of discharge, audit and control proceedings, and information, communication and visibility activities, related to the use of financial allocations related to the implementation of the agreements referred to in Article 19. The personal data shall be processed in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 or Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, whichever is applicable. Within the framework of the discharge procedure to the Commission, in accordance with Article 319 TFEU, the Fund shall be subject to reporting under the integrated financial and accountability reporting referred to in Article 247 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046, and, in particular, separately in the annual management and performance report.

4. The agreements referred to in Article 19 shall also provide for the right of the Commission to reduce proportionately the support under the Fund and recover any amount due to the Union budget, in cases of fraud, corruption, and conflict of interests affecting the financial interests of the Union that have not been corrected by the Member State, or a serious breach of an obligation resulting from such agreements. When deciding on the amount of the recovery and reduction the Commission shall respect the principle of proportionality and shall take into account the seriousness of the fraud, corruption and conflict of interests affecting the financial interests of the Union, or of a breach of an obligation. The Commission shall give the Member State the opportunity to present its observations before the reduction is made.