Activities of Angelika WINZIG related to 2022/2126(DEC)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking (before 30.11.2021 the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking) for the financial year 2021
Amendments (10)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. NotWelcomes from the report of the Courts of Auditors (the ‘Court’s report’) that the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking for the financial year ended on 31 December 2021 present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Joint Undertaking at 31 December 2021, the results of its operations, its cash flows, and the changes in net assets for the year then ended, in accordance with its Financial Regulation and with the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer; notes and that the underlying transactions to the accounts are legal and regular in all material respects;
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1 a. Acknowledges that Horizon Europe envisages ambitious goals for the Joint Undertaking, that can only be achieved if effective solutions that address the weaknesses in the internal control systems and prepare for the future challenges arising from increased responsibilities, e.g. in the area of human resources management and planning, are designed and implemented; points out, in this context, that particularly complicated and burdensome calculations and reporting requirements represent a significant risk of error and calls therefore, to explore the possibilities of simplifications wherever possible and compatible with the existing legal framework;
Amendment 3 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Notes, from the Joint Undertaking’s Report on budgetary and financial management 2021,Understands that the budget execution was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic situation, in particular for what concerns payment appropriations for the administrative expenditure; notes that and that nonetheless, the Joint Undertaking has had a 99.6% rate of implementation for the commitment appropriations in 2021 (excluding the unused appropriations not required in current year) and the payment appropriations were executed to 82.3% of the available funds (excluding the unused appropriations 2021 of EUR 59.8 million. 56.3% of execution rate if the unused appropriations are included as total payment budget);
Amendment 4 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. NoteHighlights that the implementation rate for the Joint Undertaking’s 2021 commitment and payment budget available for Horizon 2020 projects was 100% and 83% respectively;
Amendment 6 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. NotWelcomes that the Joint Undertaking also further implemented together with the other Joint Undertakings, the use of Systal, an online HR tool to perform secure selection processes; notes that, in accordance with the decision of the Governing Board regarding the reclassification system, in 2021 the Joint Undertaking has performed the reclassification exercise and as a result, eleven TA end three CA staff members were reclassified;
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Notes that to assess the operational payment controls of the Joint Undertaking, the Court audited randomly sampled Horizon 2020 payments made in 2021, at the level of the final beneficiaries, to corroborate the ex-post audit error rates; notdeplores that, in one case, the Court found and quantified a systemic error related to the incorrect calculation of the hourly rates for personnel costs;
Amendment 11 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. NotesIs deeply concerned that, in 2021, important documents (for example, evaluation committee members' declarations of absence of conflict of interests; procurement evaluation reports; recruitment evaluation reports; decisions on recruitment selection boards; procurement award decisions, and employment contracts) were authorised by coping and pasting an image of the signature of the responsible authorising officer into the document in Word format and then converting the file into PDF format; agrees with the Court observation that this practice may present legal risks, as a rejected candidate may challenge the regularity of the signed evaluation documents; calls on the Joint Undertaking to immediately stop this practice and to opt for a secure authorisation method;
Amendment 13 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. NotWelcomes that, in 2021, the Joint Undertaking continued to apply the decisions adopted by the Governing Board regarding the rules on the prevention and management of conflicts of interest applicable to the bodies of the Joint Undertaking and to the JU staff members; notes and that the related processes, for instance concerning Members of the JU’s Governing Board, experts of evaluation procedures, panels for procurement and recruitment, applied consistently the required precautionary measures to identify potential conflicts; notunderlines that a Joint Undertaking policy on sensitive functions has been drafted based on a dedicated risk assessment and will be finalised in the year 2022;
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. NotesPoints out that according to an assessment of the European Court of Auditors, the risk of fraudulent bankruptcies or other fraudulent behaviours, to escape the financial problems and supply restrictions, needs to be considered in the context of the Covid- 19 pandemic as additional threat for legality and regularity; noappreciates that the Joint Undertaking has established a specific risk- based sample of ex-post audits to cover the stratum in the Joint Undertaking population of Grant Agreement for Partners (GAP) projects, which indicate a certain exposure to Covid- 19 constraints as described by the Court of Auditors, like financial weaknesses, operational delays, high personal costs as compared to average;
Amendment 15 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. NotDeplores that, in the year 2021, OLAF issued the conclusions and its reports regarding two cases pertaining to grants of Clean Sky and Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking; notes and that the alleged fraud was confirmed in both cases;