2012 discharge: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound)

PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EUROFOUND) for the financial year 2012, together with the Foundation’s reply.

CONTENT: in accordance with the tasks conferred on the Court of Auditors by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Court presents to the European Parliament and to the Council, in the context of the discharge procedure, a Statement of Assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts of each institution, body or agency of the EU, and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them, on the basis of an independent external audit.

This audit concerned, amongst others, the annual accounts of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EUROFOUND).

In the Court’s opinion, the Foundation’s Annual Accounts fairly present, in all material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2012 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its financial rules and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer.

The Court also considers that the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Foundation for the financial year ended 31 December 2012 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.

The report confirms that the resources made available for the Foundation in 2012 amounted to EUR 21.4 million.

The report also makes a series of observations on the budgetary and financial management of the Foundation, accompanied by the latter’s response. The main observations may be summarised as follows:

The Court’s observations:

• budgetary management: the Court notes that the carry-over of committed appropriations for operational expenditure was high at 50%. A large part of the carry-overs (71%) concern two projects for which the activities were implemented as planned and as set out in the Annual Work Programme.

The Foundation’s replies:

• budget implementation: the Foundation stresses the multiannual nature of most of Eurofound’s research projects. Eurofound will continue to scrutinise the carry-over of committed appropriations by annually establishing an amount of appropriations to be carried over on the basis of its Annual work programme (‘planned carry-overs’) and comparing it to the unplanned amount due to delays or changes in the work programme implementation (‘unplanned carry-overs’).

Lastly, the Court of Auditors’ report contains a summary of the Foundations’s activities in 2012. This is focused on the following:

• implementing the Network of European Observatories (NEO);
• monitoring and investigating working conditions;
• reporting on employment and competitiveness in Europe as well as industrial relations, workplace development and social cohesion;
• communication and sharing ideas and experiences: industrial relations and working conditions development in Europe 2011, work organisation and innovation and workplace development, working conditions in the retail sector, flexicurity;
• monitoring social cohesion and quality of life;
• internet monitoring.