PURPOSE: to grant discharge to the Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy for the financial year 2016.
NON-LEGISLATIVE ACT: Decision (EU, Euratom) 2018/1451 of the European Parliament on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy for the financial year 2016.
CONTENT: the European Parliament decided to grant the Director of the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy discharge in respect of the implementation of the Joint Undertaking's budget for the financial year 2016.
This decision is accompanied by a resolution of the European Parliament containing the observations which form an integral part of the discharge decision in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2016 (please refer to the summary dated 18.4.2018).
In this resolution, Parliament expressed ongoing concern that the estimated completion date for the whole construction phase is currently planned with a delay of about 15 years compared to the original baseline. The new schedule endorsed by the ITER Council set out a four-stage approach, making December 2025 the deadline for achieving the first strategic milestone of the project construction phase (‘First Plasma’) and December 2035 the estimated completion date for the whole construction phase. Parliament stressed that even though the new baseline does not include a contingency, the Commission suggested that a contingency of up to 24 months in terms of schedule and 10 to 20 % in terms of budget would be appropriate.
Lastly, Parliament acknowledged the fact that in 2016, the Joint Undertaking internal audit capability (IAC) followed up its audit of procurement in the area of ITER buildings and acknowledged the important work performed by the Joint Undertaking in formalising and designing the process, guidelines, rules and tools related to procurement activities.