PURPOSE: to
present the report of the Court of Auditors on the 2007 accounts of the
European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).
CONTENT: the
Court of Auditor’s report includes a detailed section on the European Maritime
Safety Agency’s expenditure and an analysis of the expenditure, as well as
the Agency’s replies.
- Analysis
of the accounts by the Court: in its report,
the Court makes a number of observations, particularly with regard to
the presentation of the budget. The Agency’s budget is mainly financed
by subsidies from the European Commission. The procedures for
establishing the budget were not sufficiently rigorous, which led to a
high number of budgetary transfers, incorrect budget presentation and
irregular modification of the funding source for anti-pollution appropriations.
With regard to recruitment procedures, the selection criteria were not
applied sufficiently. The Staff Committee was never invited by the Appointing
Authority to participate in the recruitment procedures. This situation
did not ensure transparent and non-discriminatory procedures;
- The
Agency’s replies: the Agency takes note of
the Court’s observation and notes that it will continue its efforts to
limit budgetary transfers. Following the observations made by the Court,
measures have been taken to ensure that selection criteria and threshold
scores are defined at an earlier stage in the selection procedure.