PURPOSE: to grant discharge to the Commission for the implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2008.
LEGISLATIVE ACTS: Decisions 2010/494/EU, Euratom and 2010/499/EU, Euratom of the European Parliament on the discharge for implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2008 and the closing of the accounts of the same budget (Section III – Commission).
CONTENT: with the present decisions, the European Parliament grants the European Commission discharge for the implementation of the general budget for 2008 and definitively closes the accounts for the year 2008.
In its resolution attached to the discharge decision, the European Parliament regrets that the implementation of the main EU expenditure continues to be marred by significant errors and the continuous level of payments. In addition, delays continue to be found in the recovery of sums unduly paid.
Parliament expects the Commission to take decisive action in the field of errors and recoveries, as well as internal control systems because if there are improvements in the management of expenditure, they remain low relative to the objectives to be reached in the Action Plan that the Commission has implemented in order to reach a positive Statement of Assurance on the implementation of the budget.
The Parliament also makes a number of other observations in a resolution annexed to the discharge decision (please refer to the summary of the opinion of 05/05/2010).
It should also be noted that the Parliament also grants discharge to the directors of the Commission’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (Decision 2010/495/EU, Euratom), the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (Decision 2010/496/EU, Euratom) and the Executive Agency for the Public Health Programme (Decision 2010/497/EU, Euratom) and the Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency (2010/498/EU, Euratom) for implementation of their respective budget for the financial year 2008.