PURPOSE: to grant discharge to the European Railway Agency (ERA) for the financial year 2014.
NON LEGISLATIVE ACT: Decision (EU) 2016/1546 of the European Parliament on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Railway Agency for the financial year 2014.
CONTENT: with the present decision, the European Parliament grants discharge to the Executive Director of the European Railway Agency for the implementation of its budget for the financial year 2014.
This decision is in line with the European Parliament's resolution adopted on 28 April 2016 and comprises a series of observations that form an integral part of the discharge decision (please refer to the summary of the opinion of 28 April 2016).
Amongst Parliament’s main observations in the resolution accompanying the discharge decision, the latter noted that since 2005, the Agency has been working on the basis of correspondence and exchanges with the host Member State (France) since a comprehensive headquarters agreement between the Agency and the host Member State was not signed. Parliament called on the Agency and France to address this issue as a matter of urgency and to inform the discharge authority on the progress of the negotiations. It deplored the fact that using two locations to carry out its activities exposes the Agency to additional costs and represents a waste of the European taxpayer's money.