The Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary
Control adopted the report drafted by Ingeborg GRÄSSLE (EPP, DE) and
Crescenzio RIVELLINI (EPP, IT) on the proposal for a regulation of the
European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC,
Euratom) No 1605/2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general
budget of the European Communities, as regards the European External Action
Service.
The committees
recommend that the European Parliament’s position at first reading under the
ordinary legislative procedure (formerly known as the codecision procedure)
should be to amend the Commission proposal as follows:
- Members
stipulate according to Council Decision 2010/427/EU of 26 July 2010
establishing the organisation and functioning of the European External
Action Service, the EEAS is a service of a sui generis nature and should
be treated as an institution for the purposes of the Financial
Regulation;
- given that
the EEAS should be treated as an institution for the purposes of the
Financial Regulation, the European Parliament is to grant discharge to
the EEAS for the implementation of the appropriations voted in the EEAS
section of the Budget. Members consider that in this context, the EEAS
shall be fully subject to the procedures provided for in Article 319 of
the TFEU and in Articles 145 to 147 of the Financial Regulation. The
EEAS shall fully cooperate with institutions involved in the discharge
procedure and provide, as appropriate, the additional necessary
information, including through attendance in meetings of the relevant
bodies. Given the novelty of this structure, high-standard provisions
on transparency and budgetary and financial accountability need to
be applied;
- within the EEAS,
a Director General for budget and administration should be
responsible to the High Representative for the administrative and
internal budgetary management of the EEAS. He shall work within the
existing format and follow the same administrative rules which are
applicable to the part of Section III of the EU budget that falls under
heading 5 of the Multiannual Financial Framework;
- the Department
for Inspections of the EEAS should examine the functioning of the
Union Delegations and report directly to the Executive Secretary
General;
- the setting
up of the EEAS should be guided, as stated in the guidelines laid down
by the European Council of 29 and 30 October 2009, by the principle of cost-efficiency
aiming towards budget neutrality;
- the Financial
Regulation should foresee the possibility for detailed arrangements,
to be agreed with the Commission, in order to facilitate the
implementation of the Union Delegations' administrative appropriations;
- under the
proposal, the Commission should be authorised to subdelegate its powers
of budget implementation of operational expenditure to Heads of Union
Delegations belonging to EEAS as a separate institution. Furthermore,
where the Commission implements the budget under direct centralised
management, it should be allowed to do so also through sub-delegation to
Heads of Union Delegations. The committees consider that such delegation
of powers should be capable of being revoked in accordance with the
rules applicable to the Commission;
- in
order to ensure democratic scrutiny of the implementation of the
European Union's budget, the statements of assurance made by
Heads of Union Delegations on the internal management and control
systems in their delegation should be annexed to their annual activity
reports and then be transmitted in copy also to the European Parliament;
- lastly, the European
Development Fund, being the Union’s most important financial
instrument for development cooperation with the African, Caribbean and
Pacific States, should fall within the ambit of the general budget of
the European Union and the general Financial Regulation.