The European Parliament adopted a decision on
discharge to be granted to the Executive Director of the European
Medicines Agency (EMA) in respect of the implementation of the
Agency's budget for the financial year 2011. The vote on the
decision to grant discharge covers the closure of the accounts (in
accordance with Annex VI, Article 5(1) of the European
Parliament’s Rules of Procedure).
Noting that the Court of Auditors stated that it has
obtained reasonable assurances that the annual accounts of the
Agency for the financial year 2011 are reliable and that the
underlying transactions are legal and regular, Parliament adopted a
resolution containing a number of recommendations that need to be
taken into account when the discharge is granted, in addition to
the general recommendations that appear in the draft resolution on performance, financial
management and control of EU agencies:
- Financing, budget and financial
management: Parliament recalls that
the Agency's budget for 2011 was EUR 208 863 000, which represents
a nominal increase over the financial year 2010. It recalls that
the total Union contributions amounted to EUR 39 765 191.39
for 2011, which represents an 8.65% increase compared to the
previous year and that the rest was financed by fees paid by the
pharmaceutical industry when applying for, obtaining or
maintaining Union marketing authorisations. Members state that a
large amount of the Agency's revenue is estimated to have derived
from the fee revenue, which continues to increase year on year.
Members are concerned as regards the need to introduce a system of
remuneration for services provided by Member States’
authorities, based on their real costs.
- Implementation rate of appropriations: Parliament observes that in terms of committed and
paid appropriations, the Agency's execution rate stands at 95.21%
and 81.97% respectively. It calls on the Agency to continue its
efforts to improve its execution rate of payment. It is concerned
that once again, the Court of Auditors reported that payment
appropriations for Title II ("Administrative expenditure") have
been carried over to 2012, representing 29% of the budget which is
excessive and at odds with the principle of annuality.
- Recruitment procedures:
Parliament states the lack of transparency in the staff selection
procedures. It states that there was no evidence of any action
taken to address the issues.
- Conflicts of interest:
noting the problems as regards the conflict of interest in the
light of the previous discharge procedure, Parliament welcomes the
efforts made but state that the Agency did not adequately manage
conflict of interest situations. It welcomes the Agency's
commitment to undertake in the first half of 2013 a review of the
implementation of its revised policy on the handling of conflicts
of interests and that an ex ante and ex post check on
the handling of conflicts of interests is currently being developed
for implementation in the second quarter of 2013. The Agency is
called upon to keep the discharge authority informed on their
respective outcomes.
Lastly, Parliament made a series of observations
concerning the procurement procedures and controls carried out by
this Community Agency.