The European
Parliament adopted, by 608 votes in favour, 36 against and 25 abstentions, a
Decision to grant the Director of the European
Maritime Safety Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of
its budget for the financial year 2006. The decision to grant discharge also
constitutes closure of the accounts of this EU agency.
At the same
time, the Parliament adopted, by 613 votes in favour, 36 against and 25 abstentions,
a Resolution containing the comments which form part of the decision giving
discharge. The report had been tabled for plenary by Hans-Peter MARTIN
(NI, AT) on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
As is the case for all EU
agencies, the Parliament's Resolution is divided into two parts: part one
contains general comments on EU agencies, while part two focuses on the
specific case of the Agency.
1) General comments on the
majority of EU agencies: the Parliament notes that the budgets of the 24
agencies and other satellite bodies audited by the Court of Auditors totalled
more than EUR 1 billion and that the number of agencies is constantly
increasing. The number of agencies subject to the discharge procedure evolved
from 8 in 2000 to 20 in 2006. It concludes therefore that the
auditing/discharge process has become cumbersome and disproportionate
compared to the relative size of the agencies and that, in the future, this
type of procedure should be simplified and rationalised for decentralised
agencies.
On the basis of the financial
analysis, the Parliament is of the following opinion:
- Fundamental considerations:
given the constantly increasing number of agencies, the Parliament
requests that, before the creation of a new agency, the Commission
provide clear explanations regarding agency type, objectives of the
agency, internal governance structure, products, services, clients and
stakeholders of the agency, formal relationship with external actors,
budget responsibility, financial planning, and personnel and staffing
policy. It also requests that each agency be governed by a yearly
performance agreement which should contain the main objectives for the
coming year and that the performance of the agencies be regularly
audited by the Court of Auditors (and extend the financial analysis of
expenditure to also cover administrative efficiency and effectiveness).
More generally, the Parliament takes the view that, in the case of
agencies, which are continually overestimating their respective budget
needs, technical abatement should be made on the basis of vacant posts
in order to reduce the assigned revenue for the agencies and therefore
also lower administrative costs of the EU. It recalls that it is a
serious problem that a number of agencies is criticised for not
following rules on public procurement, the Financial Regulation, the
Staff Regulations etc., and consider that the principal reason for this
is that most regulations and the Financial Regulation are designed for
bigger institutions rather than for small agencies. Therefore, it is
necessary to seek a rapid solution in order to enhance the effectiveness
of the legislation by grouping the administrative functions of various
agencies together or by establishing implementing rules which are better
adapted to the agencies. The Parliament also insists that the
Commission, when drafting the Preliminary Draft Budget, take into
consideration the results of budget implementation by the individual
agencies in former years and revise the budget requested by the
particular agency accordingly. If the Commission does not undertake this
revision, the Parliament invites the competent committee to revise,
itself, the budget in question to a realistic level. At the same
time, the Parliament recalls that it expects the Commission to present
every five years a study on the added value of every existing agency and
to not hesitate to close an agency if it is deemed useless by the
analysis. Such an assessment is expected as soon as possible given that
this type of assessment has yet to be presented. Furthermore, the
Parliament insists that recommendations of the Court of Auditors should
be promptly implemented and the level of subsidies paid to the agencies
should be aligned with their real cash requirements.
- Presentation of reporting
data: noting that there is no standard approach among the agencies
with regard to the presentation of information, the Parliament recalls
that it already invited the directors of the agencies to accompany their
annual activity report with a declaration of assurance concerning the
legality and regularity of operations, similar to the declarations
signed by the Directors General of the Commission. It therefore asks the
Commission to amend its standing instructions to the agencies and to
produce a harmonised model for presenting information, including: i) an
annual report intended for a general readership on the body's
operations, work and achievements; ii) financial statements and a report
on implementation of the agency’s budget; iii) an activity report of the
Directors of the agency (as requested by the Parliament since 2005); iv)
a declaration of assurance signed by the body's director.
- General findings by the
Court of Auditors: the Parliament refers to certain recurring
findings by the Court, including the disbursement of subsidies paid by
the Commission (not sufficiently justified estimates of the agencies'
cash requirements), the non implementation of the ABAC accounting system
by some agencies or the accrued charges for untaken leave which are
accounted for by some agencies. It calls for rapid measures in these
areas as well as improvements to the internal audit procedures of the
agencies. The Parliament also calls on the agencies to consider an
inter-agency disciplinary board, as some individual agencies have
difficulty in setting up their own disciplinary boards due to their
size.
- Draft inter-institutional
agreement: the Parliament recalls the Commission's draft
Interinstitutional agreement on the operating framework for the European
regulatory agencies (see ACI/2005/2035),
which was intended to create a framework for the creation, structure,
operation, evaluation and control of the European regulatory agencies
and awaits its adoption as soon as possible. It particularly welcomes
the Commission's commitment to bring forward a Communication on the
future of the regulatory agencies during the course of 2008.
2) Specific points
concerning the European Maritime Safety Agency: the Parliament expresses
concern at the finding by the Court of Auditors that more than 43% of payment
appropriations had to be cancelled at the end of the financial year and that
there was a concentration of transactions during the last quarter of the
year, such that the budgetary principle of specification was not strictly
observed.
It also expresses concern at the following:
- a high number of budgetary transfers;
- inadequate
planning of staff recruitment;
- incorrect budget presentation.
The
Parliament also regrets the low utilisation
rate for payment appropriations for anti-polluting measures at sea (67.7 %),
despite Parliament's continuing support for these measures in the process
leading to the adoption of the budget. It recalls that, in view of the
impossibility of providing an anti-pollution vessel to cover the Atlantic Arc
area in 2006 and 2007, comprising the Galician coasts and the Bay of Biscay, it urges the Commission and the Agency to step up their efforts to achieve
this objective in 2008.
Furthermore, the Parliament calls on the Agency to take
urgent action to remedy the Court's findings in several areas (the Agency's
inventory system is weak, its records do not allow all goods to be physically
traced, an accumulated surplus of EUR 7.18 million, and the recurring problem
of recruiting staff). In this context, it welcomes the Agency’s request to be
the pilot project for the Commission’s new generation of ABAC financial
systems (Accrual Based Accounting).
In
addition, the Parliament believes that further investigations should be
carried out into the feasibility of pooling systems and services
between agencies, in order to achieve economies of scale and to help new
agencies in the start-up phase.
Lastly, the Parliament notes
the statement in the Agency's annual report that the reimbursement of travel
expenses of the growing number of participants at its meetings is a
labour-intensive process. It therefore calls on the
Court to look at the general issue of the reimbursement of travel expenses in
its next reports on the agencies.