2017 discharge: Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (FCH 2 Joint Undertaking)

2018/2216(DEC)

The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Martina DLABAJOVÁ (ALDE, CZ) on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH 2) Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2017.

The committee called on the European Parliament to grant the joint undertaking’s Executive Director discharge in respect of the implementation of the Joint Undertaking’s budget for the financial year 2017.

Noting that the Court of Auditors issued a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions for the financial year 2017, Members called on Parliament to approve the closure of the joint undertaking’s accounts.

They made, however, a number of recommendations that need to be taken into account when the discharge is granted. They may be summarised as follows:

Budget and financial management

FCH2´s final budget for the financial year 2017 included commitment appropriations of EUR 127 800 000 and payment appropriations of EUR 198 600 000. Payment appropriations increased by 71.95 %, and were mainly used for pre-financing the 2016 and 2017 calls for proposals.

The overall 2017 budget execution of commitment and payment appropriations reached 96 % and 89 % respectively.

Other observations

The report also contained a series of observations on performance, internal control systems and audits. It noted in particular:

- that all calls for proposals were published and closed according to the respective work plans and that the results regarding ‘time-to-grant’ and ‘time-to-pay’ remained well below the defined targets;

- in 2017, the FCH2 finalised implementation of all action plans addressing recommendations on internal audit service (IAS) audits on the performance management undertaken by the IAS in 2016, with an exception of one action;

- that the FCH2 adopted rules on prevention and management of conflict of interest covering its staff and bodies;

- on 31 December 2017, the total number of posts filled in the FCH2 was 26, representing 11 different Member States;

- a number of communication activities were organised in 2017 which further contributed to increased visibility of the FCH2.