The European Parliament decided
to grant discharge to the Executive Director of the European
Border and Coast Guard Agency in regard to the implementation of
the agency’s budget for the 2016 financial year and to approve
the closure of the accounts for the financial year in
question.
Noting that the Court of Auditors
has stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the
agency’s annual accounts for the financial year 2016 are
reliable and that the underlying transactions are legal and
regular, Parliament adopted by 529 votes to 145 with 13
abstentions, a resolution containing a series of recommendations,
which form an integral part of the decision on discharge and which
add to the general recommendations set out in the resolution on performance, financial management and
control of EU agencies:
- Agency’s financial statements: the final budget of the European Border and Coast
Guard Agency for the financial year 2016 was EUR 232 757 000,
representing an increase of 62.43 % compared to 2015. In response
to the migration crisis faced by the Union, the mandate of the
Agency was considerably extended in 2016.
- Budget and financial management: Members welcomed that the budget-monitoring efforts
during the financial year 2016 resulted in a budget implementation
rate of 97.90 %. They noted that under the
Agency’s extended mandate, high importance is attached to
return operations and EUR 63 million had been assigned to that in
its 2016 budget. However, EUR 23 million was repaid to the Union
budget since fewer return operations were carried out than
envisaged.
- Parliament deplored the significant delay of the
procurement procedure for a EUR 50 million framework
contract to charter aircraft and related services for the
Agency return operations had not been started by the year end while
the launch of this procurement procedure was planned for March
2016. This delay continues to affect the number of return
operations arranged by the Agency
- On 22 December 2015, the Commission and the
Agency, as co-beneficiary and coordinator of three other
co-beneficiaries - the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), the
International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) - signed
a grant agreement amounting to EUR 5.5 million on
regional support to protection-sensitive migration management in
the Western Balkans and Turkey for a three year period starting on
1 January 2016. However, cooperation agreements with these three
partners which amounted to EUR 3.4 million were only signed between
August and November 2016. Members noted from the Agency’s
reply that in order to document the fact that the legal commitment
for all three project partners was made prior to the budgetary
commitment, the Agency duly documented this as an
exception.
The resolution indicated that, in
2017, the Agency is revising its entire financial scheme aiming
at simplifications, switching from grants to service contracts
and introducing flat rates. Parliament called on the Agency to
report to the discharge authority on the implementation of the new
scheme and the results achieved.
Members also made a series of
observations regarding commitments and carry-overs, the prevention
and management of conflicts of interests, internal audits and
controls.
The Agency’s staff will more
than double from 365 in 2016 to 1 000 in 2020 following the
extension of its mandate. However, the Agency traditionally
experiences difficulties in finding staff with the required
profile, partly because of the salary correction coefficient
(66.7%). Parliament called on the Agency to reflect on
possible mitigating measures and that it reports on its reflections
to the discharge authority. It also calls on the Agency to provide
the discharge authority with an answer as to whether meetings with
lobbyists had been registered and made public
Lastly, they noted that the
Agency sees no financial risks influencing its operations caused by
the Brexit.