The European Parliament decided to grant the Executive Director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI 2) Joint Undertaking discharge in respect of the implementation of the joint undertakings budget for the financial year 2017 and to approve the closure of the joint undertakings accounts.
Noting that the Court of Auditors considered that the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2017 accurately reflected the financial position of the Joint Undertaking as at 31 December 2017, as well as the results of its operations, Parliament adopted by 505 votes to 115, with 9 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of observations which form an integral part of the discharge decision.
General
The maximum contribution for the period of 10 years from the Union to the IMI 2 Joint Undertaking is EUR 1 638 000 000, to be paid from the budget of Horizon 2020 and the members, other than the Commission, have to contribute 50 % of the running costs and should contribute to operational costs through cash or in-kind contributions, or both, equal to the financial contribution of the Union.
Budgetary and financial management
Parliament noted the clean opinion of the Court on the legality and regularity of transactions underlying the annual accounts of the IMI 2 Joint Undertaking for the year 2017 which are legal and regular in all material respects.
The final 2017 budget available for the Seventh Framework Programme and Horizon 2020 programme implementation included commitment appropriations of EUR 322 396 498 and payment appropriations of EUR 206 372 367. The utilisation rates for commitment appropriations were 97.07 %.
Members regretted, however, that payment appropriations were for the fourth consecutive year below 75 %: in 2017 they were at 71.96 %. This low implementation was mainly due to a reduction or postponement of clinical trials within some large and complex projects of the anti-microbial resistance and Ebola programmes and to delays in concluding grant agreements for calls under Horizon 2020. They invited the IMI 2 Joint Undertaking to present updated information to the discharge authority and to improve the payment appropriations for the procedure next year.
Other observations
The resolution also contained a series of observations on performance and internal control systems. It noted in particular:
- the strategy to involve SMEs as IMI Joint Undertaking´s beneficiaries and thus contributing to the creation of a value chain as well as the involvement of the patients organisations;
- at the end of 2017 approximately 50 % of IMI Joint Undertaking´s projects had patient organisations engaged in some sort of way;
- by the end of 2017, the Commissions Common Support Centre had not finished specific developments in the Horizon 2020 grant management and monitoring tools to serve the IMI 2 Joint Undertakings reporting and processing needs for in-kind contributions. The IMI 2 JU should report to the discharge authority these results;
- a new website was launched in 2017, which is reflecting the suggestions of IMI Joint Undertaking´s main stakeholders and its own communication objectives and contributes to further visibility of the Joint Undertaking.