Activities of Saskia BRICMONT related to 2021/2122(DEC)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of European Asylum Support Office (now European Union Agency for Asylum) for the financial year 2020
Amendments (4)
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Welcomes the downward trend in the number of interim workers compared to the total number of staff; highlights that onsome of the reasons underlying the dependency on interim staff was the lack of compliance by Member States with their obligations concerning the number of national experts made available to the Office, and also the delay of the adoption and entry into force of the Regulation establishing a European Union Agency for Asylum (the ‘Regulation’); welcomes that an agreement has been reached in this regard and that the new legal framework will allow the new agency to employ remunerated experts; notes with regret the delay in entering into force the new provisions regarding the protection of fundamental rights in particular, including a new complaints mechanism, a new code of conduct, as well as a fundamental rights strategy; underlines that in order to decrease thits dependency on interim staff, the Office carried out an active dialogue with the Commission; regrets that only short term solutions could be identified and that the Office was allowed to employ 58 contractual agents in 2020 only for a period of one year, until the envisaged adoption of the Regulation; notes however, that due to the delay in the adoption of the Regulation, the Office found itself in a difficult situation, as the agreement did not allow it to extend these contracts until the entry into force of the new legal framework; notes with regret a serious lack of foresight on behalf of the Commission when designing and allocating these posts to the Office; underlines that the situation created had a negative impact on the recruitment capabilities and activities of the Office; the ability of the Office to adequately support Member States, ultimately to the detriment of asylum- seekers and refugees who faced prolonged procedures and inadequate reception conditions;
Amendment 12 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Recalls that in carrying out its operations, the Office is relatively dependent on Member States’ cooperation, e.g. in terms of the number of national experts being made available as part of the Asylum Intervention Pool referred to in Article 15 of Regulation (EU) No 439/2010 establishing the Office; stresses that, according to the Court, due to the limited number of such national experts made available, the Office further relied on contracted temporary agency workers to perform operational support tasks on the ground; calls on Member States to comply with their obligations as regards national experts in order to avoid the need for the Office to rely on external contractors;
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3 a. Reminds that in 2018 the Office’s executive director ad interim proposed a Governance Action Plan reinforcing the Office’s governance structures, and rebuilding internal capacity; notes that since then, the Office has been putting continuous efforts into strengthening its governance and its internal control system; welcomes that, according to the Court, most of the actions set out in the plan have been completed;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Recalls the important role that EASOthe Office fulfils in the EU asylum policy framework, assisting requesting Member States with valuable expertise and resources on the matter; welcomes the signature of a new operational support plan with Spain in 2020, bringing the total number of countries assisted by the Office to eight; stresses that the activation of this support measure marks the Office becoming fully operational in its fifth Member State Operation, the others being in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta, which means that the Office is now supporting all main countries of first arrival to manage their asylum and/or reception procedures;