2014 discharge: European Medicines Agency (EMA)

PURPOSE: to grant discharge to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the financial year 2014.

NON-LEGISLATIVE ACT: Decision (EU) 2016/1534 of the European Parliament on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Medicines Agency for the financial year 2014.

CONTENT: with this Decision, the European Parliament gives discharge to the Executive Director of the European Medicines Agency for the implementation of the Agency’s budget for 2014.

The Decision is consistent with the European Parliament’s resolution adopted on 28 April 2016 and includes a series of observations that form an integral part of the discharge decision (refer to the summary of the opinion of 28 April 2016).

Amongst Parliament’s main observations in the resolution accompanying the discharge decision, it broached the difficulties on the legality and regularity of transactions. It noted that the Agency’s Fee Regulation provides due dates for the collection of fees from applicants and the Agency’s related payments to national competent authorities. These due dates were not respected for most of the transactions audited by the Court. It called on the Agency to take all measures necessary to remedy this issue.