The European Parliament adopted, by 582 votes in favour, 77 against and 18 abstentions, a Decision to grant the Commission discharge in respect of the implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2006, as well as to the Commission’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency and the Intelligent Energy Executive Agency. The decision to grant discharge also constitutes closure of the accounts.
At the same time, the Parliament adopted by 582 votes in favour, 49 against and 54 abstentions, a Resolution containing the comments which form part of the decision giving discharge. The report had been tabled to plenary by Dan JØRGENSEN (PES, DK) on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Firstly, the Resolution recalls that 80% of Community expenditure is administered by the Member States under shared management, and that, therefore, each Member State must be able to take responsibility for the management of EU funds received by it, either through a single national management declaration or in the form of several declarations within a national framework.
In line with the position of the committee responsible, the plenary returned to the issue of shared management and responsibility, at all levels, of the implementation of the Community budget.
Overall, the Parliament made the following points:
Main conclusions: the Parliament welcomes the progress made by the Commission towards a more efficient use of EU funds and in the overall control environment. It welcomes the ECA’s statement of assurance, particularly regarding the level of error, and calls on the Court to apply this principle to all chapters of its annual report in the future. It welcomes the considerable progress made by the Commission in the management of common agricultural policy (CAP) funds, thanks to the functioning of the Integrated Administrative Control System (IACS), as well as the commitment by the Commission to report on a monthly basis to the Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control on the follow-up to the discharge procedure, so that, every month, the Parliament has an idea of the latest developments, covering national declarations and annual summaries, external actions and the implementation of the action plan to strengthen the Commission's supervisory role under shared management of structural actions. However, plenary abandoned the idea of calling for the setting up of a joint Parliament-Commission working group for the follow-up to the discharge in respect of the financial year 2006, as the Committee responsible had called for.
National management declarations: the Parliament welcomes the Commission's commitment to give firm political support to Member States in the drawing up and publishing of national declarations, following the example of the Netherlands, the UK, Denmark and Sweden. In particular, plenary insists that the Commission must react to fulfil important requests made in Parliament's resolution accompanying the discharge decision in respect of the financial year 2005, which is not the case in the field of national declarations, where Parliament asked the Commission to submit to the Council before the end of 2007 a proposal for a national management declaration covering all Community funds under shared management. Parliament regrets the Commission's tacit acceptance of Member States' collective irresponsibility concerning financial management in the European Union, with the exception of Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, who decided to follow Parliament’s requests in terms of national declarations.
Concerning recoveries, the Commission must present complete and reliable figures for recoveries, specifying the exact budget line and year to which the recovery relates, given that any other presentation makes serious control by the Parliament impossible (even though it is aware that the Commission to a large extent has to obtain this information from the Member States). It is also recalled that, for the last three years, Parliament has proposed the introduction of national management declarations in order to put the Commission in a position where it is able to fulfil its information role.
Overall, the Parliament expects the Commission to include a new action point “promoting national management declarations”, as part of its follow-up to its action plan towards an integrated internal control framework. Therefore, it completely rejects the Commission’s position, which decided not to continue developing a single standard declaration for all Member States.
Structural Funds: Parliament welcomes the publication of an action plan to strengthen the Commission's supervisory role under shared management of structural actions in reaction to the concerns raised by Parliament in the course of the discharge procedure in respect of the financial year 2006. It also welcomes the firm commitment made by the Commission to ensure that any undue payments are recovered in the time remaining before the closure of winding-up procedures for the period 2000 to 2006 and considers a major achievement of the 2006 discharge procedure to be the commitment made by the Commission to correct all individual errors found in the ECA's Annual Report, and in particular the commitment to make 100% corrections in all cases of serious breach of public procurement procedures and to apply financial corrections whenever it finds systemic tendering problems. Parliament fully approves the Commission’s initiative to apply a policy of suspending payments as soon as possible following detection of serious weaknesses in Member States’ control systems. In this context, it hopes to set up a reporting scheme allowing recoveries made ex post to be linked to the year when the actual funding was allocated.
External actions: the Parliament welcomes the Commission’s increasing awareness of the importance of transparency, visibility and political guidance for all EU funds implemented in the area of external actions, be it directly by the Commission or via international trust funds. In this context, Parliament invites the Commission to revise, as soon as possible, the Financial and Administrative Framework Agreement between the European Community and the United Nations (FAFA) and it expects to be kept informed regarding this agreement. It calls on the Commission to provide a series of technical information with the aim of improving the visibility of Community funds, particularly when implementing aid via other organisations.
In addition to these general observations, the Parliament makes a certain number of horizontal observations on the Statement of Assurance and on the implementation of different budgetary headings during the financial year 2006.
Horizontal issues: while overall the Parliament notes with satisfaction the Court of Auditor’s positive opinion concerning the reliability of the final annual accounts for 2006, it deplores, nonetheless, the fact that in areas such as structural measures, internal policies and external actions, payments are still affected by high material errors at the level of implementing organisations. In particular, it regrets the lack of clarity about legality, and the inevitable impact on the media, of EU funds being received by railway companies, horse riding/breeding clubs, golf leisure clubs and city councils.
The Parliament notes the significant efforts made by the Commission in terms of budgetary management but once again regrets the financial drain caused by the RAL (outstanding commitments unused and carried over to be implemented in subsequent financial years), corresponding to 28% of the total amounts of the related financial perspective headings for the whole of the period 2000-2006.
Sectoral issues: the Parliament looked in detail at the implementation of the budget for each of the budget headings and made the following points: