The European Parliament adopted a decision to
postpone its decision on granting the Administrative Manager of
the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications
(BEREC) discharge in respect of the implementation of the
Body’s budget for the financial year 2012. In parallel,
Parliament postponed the closure of the Body’s 2012
accounts.
Parliament adopted by 572 votes to 10, with 14
abstentions, a resolution containing a series of recommendations
that form an integral part of the discharge decision and as well as
the general recommendations that appear in the draft resolution on performance, financial
management and control of EU agencies.
These recommendations are summarised as
follows:
- Legality and regularity of
transactions: Parliament regretted
that the Body’s accounting system has not been validated in
2013. It called on the Body to take steps in order to avoid such
situations in the future and to report on the steps taken by 1
September 2014. It regretted that the committed appropriations
carried over, amounting to EUR 61.5 million (10% of the total
committed appropriations carried over), did not correspond to legal
commitments and were thus irregular.
- Budget and financial management: it noted with concern that budget monitoring efforts
during the financial year 2012 resulted in a budget implementation
rate of 63.4% and that the payment appropriations execution rate
was 66.16%.
- Commitments and carryovers: Parliament also regretted that 45% of the committed
appropriations carried over from 2011 were cancelled and that
appropriations of EUR 545 000 were not used and had to be
cancelled. It worried that the level of carry-overs of committed
appropriations to 2013 was high at EUR 611 000. It believed
that this indicates difficulties in the planning and/or
implementation of the Body’s activities.
- Recruitment procedures:
Parliament regretted that the recruitment procedures examined
showed significant shortcomings affecting transparency, namely that
questions for written tests and interviews were set after the
applications had been examined by the selection board. Improvements
should be made in this area.
- Conflicts of interests:
it also regretted that the Body has provided limited information
regarding conflicts of interests policy. It noted that personal
conflicts of interests declarations are requested from the members
of the Body's Management Committee and the Board of Regulators, as
well as from their staff members. Parliament called on the Body to
inform the discharge authority of whether it plans to review its
conflict of interests arrangements on the basis of the Commission's
Guidelines on the Prevention and Management of Conflict of
Interests in EU Decentralised Agencies.
- Performance: Parliament
requested that the Body communicate the results and impact its work
has on European citizens in an accessible way, mainly through its
website.
Lastly, it made a series of observations on transfers,
procurement and recruitment procedures as well as comments on
internal controls.