PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of
Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the European
Environment Agency for the financial year 2014, together with the
Agency’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 Environment Agency (EEA).
Statement of assurance: pursuant to the provisions of
Article 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
(TFEU), the Court has audited:
- the annual accounts of the Agency, which comprise the
financial statements and the reports on the implementation of the
budget for the financial year ended 31 December 2014,
and
- the legality and regularity of the transactions
underlying those accounts.
Opinion on the reliability of the
accounts: in the Court’s
opinion, the Agency’s annual accounts present fairly, in all
material respects, its financial position as at 31 December 2014
and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year
then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial
Regulation and the accounting rules adopted by the
Commission’s accounting officer.
Opinion on the legality and regularity of the
transactions underlying the accounts:
in the Court’s opinion, the transactions underlying the annual
accounts for the year ended 31 December 2014 are legal and regular
in all material respects.
The report also makes a series of observations on the
budgetary and financial management of the Agency, accompanied by
the latter’s response. The main observations may be summarised
as follows:
The Court’s observations:
- legality and regularity of the
accounts: in 2014, the Agency
launched a call to procure services to provide IT and Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) consultancy services for the
implementation of Reference Data Access (RDA) component and for
supporting EEA in other Copernicus related activities to the value
of EUR 1.7 million. In this regard, clearer tender specifications
would have contributed to a more effective and competitive
procurement procedure;
- internal controls: the
Court noted weaknesses for the grant transactions
audited;
- data protection: the
Agency has contracted backup services, including email services,
with a cloud services provider using an interinstitutional contract
procured by DIGIT. The conditions of the contract do not adequately
define the location of the Agency’s data. The contractor has
reserved the right to transfer the Agency’s data outside the
geographic area of the European Union without notice, e.g. to
address latency issues, routing data may need to be copied to
different data centres in different regions.
The Agency’s replies:
- legality and regularity of the
accounts: according to EEA’s
understanding the principle of transparency has been
respected;
- internal controls: the
Agency stated that it will take account of the comments of the
Court when revising the current European Topic Centres or (ETC)
verification policy;
- data protection: the EEA
considered the residual risks identified as acceptable and
adequately addressed by the agreed contractual clauses. The EEA
will however undertake periodic reviews of the contract
implementation with a view to re-assess the risks and adopt
appropriate measures and remedial actions if deemed
necessary.
Lastly, the Court of Auditors’ report contains a
summary of the Agency’s activities in 2014. This is
focused on the following:
Budget: EUR 52.6 million
of which the Union subsidy amounts to 80%.
Activities:
- production of press releases;
- data sets;
- indicators;
- publication of reports and promotional
material;
- study on the European environment — state and
outlook.