2015 discharge: Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking - BBI Joint Undertaking

PURPOSE: to grant discharge to the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2015.

NON-LEGISLATIVE ACT: Decision (EU) 2017/1729 of the European Parliament on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2015.

CONTENT: with the present decision, the European Parliament grants discharge to the Executive Director of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking for the implementation of the latters budget 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 recalled that 2015 was an important year for the Joint Undertaking as it reached operational capacity and financial autonomy on 26 October 2015 and that the first months of the Joint Undertaking's autonomous existence did not entail any issues of a systemic nature.

It noted that the Joint Undertaking moved to its new premises in Brussels in April 2015.

Parliament also welcomed that the Joint Undertaking's interim executive director put in place internal management and control systems and procedures that ensure the implementation of the internal control framework.

The Joint Undertaking is called on to incorporate into its annual activity report a section on its anti-fraud strategy and to report to the discharge authority on the completion of the declarations of absence of a conflict of interest.