2017 discharge: European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol)

PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the European Police Office for the year 2017, together with Europol’s reply.

CONTENT: the Court of Auditors carried out the audit on the accounts of the European Police Office (Europol).

In brief, the Office’s main aim is to support and strengthen action by the Member States' police authorities and other law enforcement services and their mutual cooperation in preventing and combating serious crime affecting two or more Member States, terrorism and forms of crime which affect a common interest covered by Union policy.

Statement of assurance and reliability of the accounts

The Court considered that:

- the Office’s annual accounts present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position as at 31 December 2017 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer;

- the transactions underlying the annual accounts for the year ended 31 December 2017 are legal and regular in all material respects.

The report also makes a series of observations on the budgetary and financial management of the Office, accompanied by the latter’s response. The main observations may be summarised as follows:

The Court’s observations

Staffing

The Agency publishes vacancy notices on its own website and in social media, but not on the website of the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO), which would increase transparency, publicity and allow citizens to identify vacancies published by the different European Institutions and agencies collectively.

The Office’s replies

Staffing

The common working language across Europol is English, thus the internal language arrangements of Europol, adopted by the Management Board, determine that recruitment procedures shall be carried out in English, unless otherwise specified. Europol operates an effective and transparent recruitment process. The publication through the website of the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) requires translation of vacancy notices, beyond English, into the official EU languages. Considering the high number of vacancy notices published yearly, translation in all EU official languages would entail high costs and delay in the process.

The Court of Auditors’ report also contained a summary of Europol’s key figures in 2017:

Budget

EUR 118 million (in payment appropriations).

Staff

804 including officials, temporary and contract staff and seconded national experts.