The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report
by Marian-Jean MARINESCU (EPP, RO) on discharge in respect of the
implementation of the budget of the ECSEL Joint Undertaking
(formerly the ENIAC Joint Undertaking and the ARTEMIS Joint
Undertaking) for the financial year 2014.
The parliamentary committee calls on the European
Parliament to grant the joint undertaking’s Executive Director
discharge in respect of the implementation of the joint
undertaking’s budget for the financial year 2014.
Noting that the Court of Auditors issued a statement
of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality
and regularity of the underlying transactions for the financial
year 2014, Members call on Parliament to approve the closure of the
joint undertaking’s accounts.
They made, however, a number of recommendations that
need to be taken into account when the discharge is granted. They
may be summarised as follows:
- General remark: Members
recall that the Joint Undertaking was established to replace and
succeed the ENIAC Joint Undertaking (ENIAC) and the ARTEMIS Joint
Undertaking (ARTEMIS) under Council Regulation (EC) No 561/2014.
They note that the Court of Auditors makes too many general, to the
detriment of viable, specific, remarks. They therefore call for an
audit with a closer focus on the annual financial performance on
the implementation status of multiannual projects, including a
clear presentation of the implementation of the budget for the
respective year and for previous years, and their results and
implementation. They note that the information provided in the
Joint Undertaking's Report on Budgetary and Financial Management
for the financial year 2014 lacked harmonisation and was often
incomplete.
- Budget and financial management: Members note that the Joint Undertaking's final budget
for the financial year 2014 included commitment appropriations of
EUR 160 114 500 and payment appropriation of EUR 104 144 250. They
regret the absence of information regarding in-kind and cash
contributions and call on the Court to include in future reports
provisions regarding the evaluation procedure and level of in-kind
and cash paid contribution, separately, for FP7 and Horizon
2020.
- Internal control: Members note that the Joint Undertaking elaborated in
2014 a checklist including the essential elements of an assurance
system and engaged in intensive exchanges with the NFAs to assess
the assurance provided by the national systems. In this regard,
they note that the Joint Undertaking estimated the residual error
rate at 0.73 %. Members note that the Joint Undertaking did not
assess the quality of the audit reports received from the NFAs
concerning the costs relating to completed projects. They also note
that, after an assessment of the audit strategies of three of the
NFAs, it was not possible to conclude whether ex-post audits are
functioning effectively due to different methodologies used by NFAs
which did not allow the Joint Undertaking to calculate either a
weighted error rate or a residual error rate. They note this
technical difficulty does not, however, result in the Court’s
negative opinion, but understandably prevents it from confirming
the legality and regularity of the transactions without formulating
a reservation; notes also that the Joint Undertaking has confirmed
that its extensive assessment of the national assurance systems
concluded that they can provide a reasonable protection of the
financial interests of its members.
Members make a series of further observations
regarding the undertaking's legal framework, internal audits, the
management of conflicts of interest and the monitoring and
reporting of research results.