Having examined the revenue and expenditure accounts
for the financial year 2012 and the balance sheet at 31 December
2012 of the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking, and
the report by the Court of Auditors on the annual accounts of the
Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2012, accompanied by the
Joint Undertaking's replies to the Court's observations, the
Council recommends the European Parliament to give a discharge to
the Executive Director of the Joint Undertaking in respect of the
implementation of the budget for the financial year
2012.
The observations in the Court of Auditors' report in
relation to the financial year 2012 call for some comments by the
Council, which may be summarised as follows:
- Qualified opinion: the
Council regrets the Court's qualified opinion on the legality and
regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts, due to
the error rate above the materiality threshold detected during its
ex-post audits. The Council urges the Joint Undertaking to take
the necessary corrective actions to recover the ineligible
expenditure and to decrease the rate of error in order to achieve
an unqualified opinion of the Court.
- Excessive carry-overs:
in order to avoid excessive carry-overs, the Council calls on the
Joint Undertaking to pay due attention to the proper implementation
of commitment and payment appropriations in the course of the
budgetary year and to decommit unused appropriations if necessary,
in line with the budgetary principle of annuality.
- Internal control systems: the Council welcomes developments achieved so far in
establishing the effective and reliable internal control systems
and invites the Joint Undertaking to continue its effort in line
with the Court's recommendations. With regard to the Court's
remarks on the internal audit function, the Council invites the
Joint Undertaking to bring its own Financial Rules concerning
the internal audit arrangements, and in particular those
regarding the powers of the Commission's internal auditor, in line
with the revised Framework Financial Regulation.
- Research results: the
Council also invites the Joint Undertaking to improve the
monitoring and reporting of research results, in line with the
provision of the relevant regulations of the Seventh Framework
Programmes.