PURPOSE: to grant discharge to the Committee of the Regions for the financial year 2015.
NON-LEGISLATIVE ACT: Decision (EU) 2017/1624 of the European Parliament on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, Section VII Committee of the Regions.
CONTENT: with the present decision, the European Parliament grants the Secretary-General of the Committee of the Regions discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Committee of the Regions for the financial year 2015.
This decision is in line with the European Parliament's resolution adopted on 27 April 2017 and comprises a series of observations that form an integral part of the discharge decision (please refer to the summary of the opinion of 27 April 2017).
Amongst Parliaments main observations in the resolution accompanying the discharge decision, the latter regretted that none of the targets set by the Committee in 2015 to increase involvement of Parliament and Council in activities related to the Committee opinions were achieved.
As was the case last year, Parliament expressed concerned that the audit recommendations on performance of IT projects for internal application lag adequate implementation. This situation should be corrected without further delay.
Parliament considered it to be fundamental that the Committee work together with the European Economic and Social Committee to follow up immediately on the ruling of the Civil Service Tribunal in a harassment case involving officials from both institutions, that it report to Parliament on the progress and that it reviews its procedures for handling future allegations of harassment to ensure that they are in line with the case-law of the Civil Service Tribunal.