The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the second
report by Marian-Jean MARINESCU (EPP, RO) on discharge in respect
of the implementation of the budget of the ARTEMIS Joint
Undertaking for the financial year 2014.
The committee called on the European Parliament to
grant the Executive Director of the ECSEL Joint Undertaking
(formerly the ARTEMIS Joint Undertaking and the ENIAC Joint
Undertaking) discharge in respect of the implementation of the
ARTEMIS Joint Undertaking’s budget for the financial year
2014.
In parallel, Members called on the Parliament to close
the accounts of the Joint Undertaking for 2014.
They made a series of specific recommendations which
may be summarised as follows:
- Budgetary and financial management: Members recalled that the Joint Undertaking and the
ENIAC Joint Undertaking were merged to create the Electronic
Components and Systems for European leadership Joint Technology
Initiative (‘ECSEL JTI’), which started its activity in
June 2014 and will run for 10 years. They are concerned that the
Court of Auditors in its report on the annual accounts of the Joint
Undertaking for the financial year 2014 issued a qualified opinion
regarding the regularity and legality of the underlying
transactions on the grounds that the administrative agreements
signed with the national funding authorities regarding the audit of
project cost claims do not include practical arrangements for
ex-post audits. Members noted that ECSEL JTI carried out an
extensive assessment of the effectiveness of the assurance systems
for a sample of 10 ARTEMIS and ENIAC Member States and noted that
the assessment demonstrated that the coverage rate is three times
higher than the threshold of 20% above which the national systems
are considered sufficient as per the ex-post audit
strategy.
- Internal control:
Members noted with concern that the Joint Undertaking took no
action regarding some internal control standards relating to
information and financial reporting and that this was due to the
impending merger. In the meantime, ECSEL JTI achieved substantial
progress with regard to the implementation of the ICS and
establishing internal audit capability.