The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report
by Benedek JÁVOR (Greens/EFA, HU) calling on the European
Parliament to give discharge to the Secretary-General of the
European Court of Auditors in respect of the implementation
of the budget of the Court for the financial year 2015.
Members took note of the opinion of the external
auditor that the financial statements of the Court give a true and
fair view of the financial position of the Court.
Budgetary and financial management: in 2015, the Courts final appropriations
amounted to a total of EUR 132 906 000 (compared to EUR 133 498 000
in 2014) and that the overall rate of implementation for the
budget was 98.68 %.
The Courts reform was implemented in 2015 and
was considered to be a success by the Court.
Courts action:
Members made a series of recommendations to the Court:
- implementing the concept of performance-based
budgeting (PBB) and good governance of human resources: this
concept should also include the setting of specific, measurable,
attainable, realistic and time-based (SMART) targets to individual
departments, units and the annual plans of members of
staff;
- resolve the audit of the agencies issue within the
context of the ongoing revision of the Financial Regulation, and
the subsequent revision of the Framework Financial
Regulation;
- work with the other institutions of the Union to
develop the performance indicators and priorities for a good
financial governance;
- give more prominence to special report by the
recipient institutions; that the effectiveness of separate special
reports could be enlarged if they were grouped together in time in
relation to specific policy areas;
- publish a first special report on conflicts of
interests by the end of June 2017 and annually
thereafter;
- promote gender balance, in particular in management
posts;
- give greater importance to geographical balance in the
area of resources management, particularly with respect to the
Member States that have acceded the Union in 2004 or
thereafter;
- revise its calculation system based on working days of
absence per individual employee;
- target its well-being activities better in order to
include proactive and positive human resources development,
with the participation of as many staff members as
possible;
- enact the submission of declarations of interests,
instead of declarations of the absence of conflicts of
interests;
- include the planning for the upgrade works of three of
the Courts buildings in its annual activity report and to
ensure the implementation of the highest possible standards of
energy efficiency during the upgrades;
- clarify how that directorate improved its translation
work;
- consider a more rational use of the Courts
official vehicles;
- note the progress in negotiations between the Court
and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and consider the
possibility of an administrative arrangement; envisage the
possibility of making recommendations on better communication about
the budget of the Union, its functions and its mission, and on how
better explain it to European citizens.
The Court is called upon to include in its annual
activity reports, in compliance with the existing rules on
confidentiality and data protection, the results and consequences
of closed OLAF cases, where the Court or any member of its staff
were the subject of the investigation.