11 Amendments of Lefteris CHRISTOFOROU related to 2020/2149(DEC)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Notes with satisfaction that, according to the observations of the Court of Auditor’s (‘the Court’s’) annual report related to Chapter 9 'Administration - MFF heading 5', no specific issues were identified in the sample of transactions concerning the EEAS for the third consecutive year and no material level of error was identified in the EEAS’s annual activity report;
Amendment 4 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes the Court’s general observations on the increase in the number of contract staff and the related budget appropriations from 2012 to 2018; observes that for the EEAS, such an increase was due to new tasks reflecting the placing of new operational and political responsibilities on the EEAS, in particular in the areas of the common security and defence policy, the implementation of the action plan against disinformation as well as the urgent priority to reinforce physical and IT security in EU Delegations; observes for the EEAS an overall increase in contract staff from 322 to 444 (i.e. a growth of 38 %); supports the EEAS efforts to strengthen its administration and asks EEAS to report back to the Budgetary Control Committee on the results and the impact of the increased contract staff numbers; encourages EEAS to create and divulge guidelines of the best practices on how to conduct recruitment procedures to ensure openness, fairness and transparency;
Amendment 6 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. NotesIs concerned about the geographical imbalances in the composition of the EEAS staff; notes considerable discrepancies between the representation of countries with comparable population size and between West and East European countries (in 2018, 347posts out of 2491 were occupied by Belgian citizens, i.e. almost 14%of total EEAS jobs, whereas Belgian citizens represent only about 2,6% of all EU population); stresses that the EEAS, like all European institutions, must ensure that all Member States are proportionally represented while at the same time respecting the competences and merits of the candidates; calls onurges the EEAS to enhance the geographical balance in order to have a proper representation of nationals from all Member States, reflecting the diversity of Member States;
Amendment 10 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Calls on the EEAS to report on the distribution of nationalities in the selection committee responsible for hiring; invites the EEAS to consider developing further instruments to ensure proportion between merit-based and geographically balanced recruitment; asks the EEAS to provide statistics of the staff according to their nationality for the year 2019;
Amendment 28 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
26. Notes the rate of anomalies detected in ex ante verifications of commitments and payments (respectively, 308 errors out of 1193 and 394 out of 2119); is concerned that in both cases errors are of an administrative nature i.e. incorrect amounts for commitments or missing supporting documents for payments presented for ex-ante financial verification; calls for the implementation of measures that would contribute to a reduction of the level of errors in general terms;
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30
Paragraph 30
30. Underlines that the spread of deliberate, large-scale systematic disinformation is an acute strategic challenge for the Union’s public diplomacy for which adequate financial, IT and human resources should be devoted in the short-to-medium term term; supports the reinforcement of the linkage between policy making, public diplomacy and strategic communication;
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
Paragraph 31
31. Notes that only two delegations provided motivated reservations, i.e. the Delegation to Syria (since 2017) and the Delegation in Djibouti in relation to the management of their administrative expenditure, in particular linked to procurement issues; calls on EEAS to undertake necessary steps to examine these issues;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33
Paragraph 33
33. Welcomes the fact that the EEAS is continuously adapting its anti-fraud strategy in conjunction with all the RELEX directorates general and with a dedicated format with OLAF; believes that all necessary efforts have to be made to share and exchange information on their operational challenges to better identify risky areas in their activities and programmes; calls on the EEAS to identify any possible specific policy fields where tighter collaboration with OLAF might be needed to ensure an effective fraud prevention
Amendment 43 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 39
Paragraph 39
39. Underlines that post-public employment and ‘revolving door’ conflict of interests situations is a recurring issue in the EU institutions; calls for the EEAS for the effective and consistent application of the Staff Regulations, in particular Article 16 thereof, in order to prevent conflicts of interests, in particular – but not only – concerning senior officials and seconded national experts;
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 44
Paragraph 44
44. Notes with appreciation that this increase in colocations has been coupled with a consolidation and standardisation of the system of recovery of costs through further centralisation of incurred colocations’ revenues and the application of administrative fees in the agreed service level agreements; observes that approximately EUR 10 million of revenues were generated in 2019; calls on the EEAS to present an overview of the allocation of this revenues to ensure transparency;
Amendment 52 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 50
Paragraph 50
50. Regrets the fact that there are still unpaid trainees in EU delegations; encourages the EEAS to take step to assure that trainees have means to support themselves; urges the EEAS to follow the recommendation of the European Ombudsman to pay all trainees an appropriate allowance;