Activities of Isabel GARCÍA MUÑOZ related to 2021/2115(DEC)
Reports (1)
REPORT on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2020, Section X – European External Action Service
Amendments (17)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the European External Action Service (EEAS) is responsible for the management of the administrative expenditure of its Headquarter (HQ) in Brussels and for the network of the 1434 Union Delegations and Offices;
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas under the EEAS Internal Rules the Secretary General of the EEAS acts as Authorising Officer by Delegation for the Institution and the Director General for Budget and AdministrationResource Management has the role of principal subdelegated authorising officer;
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Notes that the approved additional amounts are earmarked for financing the Action Plan against disinformation, the reinforcement of security in Delegations and HQ, investments in cyber-security, the replacement of a number of cost-free national experts with officials, an increase to the stipend amount for trainees in Delegations, , strengthening the structures of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), and some reinforcements of the geographical departments in high- priority key areas;
Amendment 10 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Welcomes that following the “Innovative 2019” exercise, aiming at fostering simplification and modernisation of working procedures and processes, several actions were launched in 2020, in particular the centralisation of high-value calls for tenders, the treasury functions and the payment of individual entitlements; notes that in 2020 some operations, in particular pre-award matters for all procurement procedures, have been increasingly centralised at HQ level to improve the quality of the procurement procedures and to alleviate the workload of the Delegations; notes with satisfaction that the full centralisation is expected during year 2021;2 supports the planned workload assessment on Delegations in 2022 as an appropriate review mechanism to help prioritise resources and organisational aspects of the Delegation network;
Amendment 12 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Notes that in 2020 the EEAS published 40 high-value procurement procedures (with a value above the Directive thresholds for services and supplies and above EUR 500 000 for works); notes that the Court examined fifteen procurement procedures for personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies organised in 2020 by some institutions, including EEAS; observes that the Court detected some problems in the procedures used by the audited institutions when procuring urgently required protective masks; observes that these institutions had set strict minimum requirements in the tender specifications (including European reference quality standards for medical face masks and delivery dates);
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Welcomes that the nomenclature of errors regarding procurement procedures, used for both ex ante and ex post controls at the EEAS, has been aligned with the one used by the Court, allowing for a better comparison of the results; appreciates that, following the Court’s assessment of the EEAS Annual Activity Report for 2019, the EEAS internal audit strategy was amended to provide more accurate information on the error rates used for the annual statement of assurance, making a clear distinction between the detected errors and the residual errors and thus, providing more accurate information regarding the action taken to correct the errors detected during the ex-post control exercise;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
25. Highlights that the Union is confronted with a volatile international environment and an increasing number of crises, which has led to increasing demands on the Union to play an important role at an international level; notes that the enhanced role of the EEAS in dealing with new challenges such as disinformation shall be underpinned by a corresponding staff increase; supports the EEAS’ call on the budgetary authority for sufficient human resources in order to deliver the Union’s effectiveness as a global actor; underlines in particular the urgent need to use flexibly available resources such as a higher number of SNEs from Member States to adjust to new requests;
Amendment 17 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Notes that in the AST and AST/SC categories the percentage of women decreased to 65.35 % compared to 66.3 % in 2019; stresses that imbalances remained among the different grades, with women representing 66.2 % of staff in the lower grades (AST2 to AST9) but only 33.3 % in the higher grades (AST10 to AST11); points out the gender balance reached with regard to contract agents (59.4 %) and local agents (54.5 %), while the majority of seconded national experts were men (75.2 %, mostly due to the limited female presence in the Member States military);
Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 39
Paragraph 39
39. Notes that the EEAS Medical Service provides guidance and accompanying measures to mitigate the risks of burnout, including psychological support, advice on appropriate local assistance, trainings on stress management and a helpline; welcomes that the EEAS adopted a set of rules to maintain the right to disconnect for all members of staff with specific rules on the use of email and telephone outside working hours;
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40
Paragraph 40
40. Commends the EEAS’ attention to social dialogue and underlines the positive impact of the direct participation of members of staff having first-hand experience of the measures submitted for discussion; welcomes in particular the broad consultation on the future of the EEAS where more than 500 colleagues from both HQ and Delegations took part and seven focus groups channelled all reflections into concrete working proposals, a project known as #EEAS@20; encourages the EEAS to keep this approach in order to respond to the expectation of members of staff while addressing the needs of the service;
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43
Paragraph 43
43. Notes that in 2020 the EEAS recruited 4157 remunerated Blue Book Trainees for a 5-month traineeship in its HQ; notes that 385 trainees were employed for 101 Delegations, for traineeships with an average length of 5 months; points out that 39 traineeships were unpaid; notes that all the Blue Book trainees received a personal computer to telework; calls on the EEAS to take the appropriate steps to ensure that all its trainees receive a decent remuneration;
Amendment 44 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 59
Paragraph 59
59. Points out that the EEAS has managed a total budget of EUR 65 600 000 for 2020 covering security services; notes that the total amount spent on security installations & maintenance for Delegations was EUR 12 942 311; observes that the whole budget for secure communications amounted to EUR 18 163 000; takes notes of the expected challenges for the protection of EU Delegations identified by the EEAS and, in particular, the lack of autonomous action to mobilise any defence capabilities in case of crises and evacuations; notes that the EEAS has reached agreements with some Members States to support, in some countries, the evacuation of expatriate staff and dependant, which has the negative aspect that this option limits the autonomy of the EEAS and EU Delegations to stay in host countries during crises; reiterates its call for fully using the potential of the Lisbon Treaty provisions to works towards a European defence union and its support for more cooperation, increased investment and pooling resources to create synergies at EU level in order to better protect Europeans;
Amendment 46 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 66
Paragraph 66
66. Notes the success of many EEAS media campaigns on key issues, such as ’We Take You Home’ on the repatriation of Union citizens due to COVID-19, ‘United in Distance’ to showcase stories of solidarity across the world in times of crisis, ’EU in Action’ on the work on the ground of the Union as a security provider, and ’BeTheWave’ on climate issues; points out that EEAS channels have also contributed to enhance visibility of 'Team Europe' worldwide; highlights that that EEAS social media account is one of the global leaders in terms of engagement amongst diplomatic services and its website received 13 millionwith over 700 thousand followers and evident growth in terms of audience interactions, while its website received 21 million page views and 13 million unique page views in 2020;
Amendment 51 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 72
Paragraph 72
72. Notes that following the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union on 31 January 2020, the EEAS established, in close cooperation with the Commission and Parliament, an EU Delegation in London and a UK Division within its HQ structure; understands that the Establishment Agreement replaces any temporary provisions and ensures that the Delegation in London, its members of staff and property, enjoy privileges and immunities equivalent to those referred to in the Vienna Convention in a similar way as the other 1434 Delegations and Offices; notes that by the end of 2020, almost 40 positions (including expatriate and local staff) were filled out of the 43 positions available in total; is aware that the Delegation is located in the building, property of the Union, used in the past by the Representation of the Commission and the European Parliament Liaison Office (EPLO);
Amendment 53 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 78
Paragraph 78
78. Supports that in a number of countries additional measures were taken to reduce the medical risks posed to members of staff because the health care systems were deemed fragile; highlights that the EEAS shipped vaccines to the 72 Delegations asking for support, which were provided to around 4,000 people, including expatriate staff in Delegations, their family members and to local agents; points out that all members of staff in HQ were provided with a corporate laptop and that over 5 000 were dispatched to the Delegations, together with PPE and medical supplies for those who were most exposed, despite the challenging delivery in countries with quarantine or lockdown measures; acknowledges that the IT infrastructure was ramped up rapidly to meet the requirements of full-scale teleworking, including increasing the internet capacity and the capacity for video conferencing;
Amendment 54 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 79
Paragraph 79
79. Notes that the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak also exposed the Union’s strategic and systemic vulnerabilities, such as supply chains or pharmaceutical products, and drew attention to the need for the Union to strengthen its own resilience and autonomy, while at the same time to pursue more assertively international partnerships; acknowledges the pandemic also brought further impetus to on-going processes, not only towards the twin digital and green transitions, but also at global level, such as moving the EU-Africa Partnership to the next level, re-invigorating the European Union-United States relationship, paying additional attention to Latin America, and putting the strategic outlook to China in practice;
Amendment 55 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 82
Paragraph 82
82. Supports the EEAS’ approach to calling for an assertive and comprehensive response as a main tool to aid recovery from a deep geopolitical crisis and to “build back better” at home and globally; encourages the EEAS to fully integrate in the internal management strategy the lessons drawn from the pandemic outbreak, in terms of business continuity and crisis management approaches, IT responsiveness, resilience of the organisation, duty of care towards its staff, effectiveness of internal communication and flexibility of working processes.