Activities of Gerben-Jan GERBRANDY related to 2011/2232(DEC)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Union Agencies for the financial year 2010: performance, financial management and control of European Union Agencies PDF (259 KB) DOC (205 KB)
Amendments (37)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 9
Citation 9
– having regard to its resolution of 15 September 2011 on the EU’s efforts to combat corruption, its Written Declaration 2/2010 on the Union’s efforts in combating corruption6, and to the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee on Fighting corruption in the EU (COM(2011)0308);
Amendment 11 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas still awaiting the Court of Auditors planned to analyse the Agencies’ performance and issue a’ Special Report by 2011 on cost benchmarking of the European Union Agencies, but regretfully failed to issue this report before the end of 2011it welcomes the fact that the Court of Auditors has provided the discharge authority, by letter of 15 February 2012, with a synthesis document of the above-mentioned special report,
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
Amendment 15 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I
Recital I
Amendment 21 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. UrgesCalls on the Council and the Commission, in suchespecially in times of financial crisis, to stop the increases in the Agencies’ budgets, to even consider reducconsider together with Parliament any changes ing the Union contribution to their budgets, in particular to the Agencies which mainly perform research; also urges the Agencies to reduce their running costs and establish mechanisms to show the clear use and accountability of each EUR and to make substantial savings of Union fundsAgencies’ budgets on a case by case basis taking into account the context of the EU 2020 strategy;
Amendment 24 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Notes that in 2010 several Agencies introduced amending budgets and proceeded to make carryovers and transfers; noticed that some of the Agencies explain the purpose of those actions, for instance CDT and ERA; urges allCalls on the Agencies to justify, systematically, amending budgets, transfers and carryovers in their report on the final annual accounts and annual report on Budgetary and Financial management;
Amendment 28 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Notes once more a large volume of carryovers and cancellations of operational appropriations by several Agencies in the financial year 2010; regrets that the Court of Auditors failed to report the level of appropriations carried forward and/or cancelled by ECHA, EEA, EMSA and CEPOL in the Court of Auditors’ reports on annual accounts for the financial year 2010;
Amendment 31 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
Amendment 41 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Recalls that the budget of the Agencies must be balanced; underlines that some Agencies generate profitshigher revenue through their activities, which sometimes lead to a surplus; is of the opinionasks the Commission to ensure that, for the Agencies fully financed from the budget of the European Union, the surplus generated in year n should be clearly deducted from the Union subsidy for year n+1, provided this is not jeopardizing the goals set for the Agencies;
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Notes once more the weaknesses in procurement procedures; is concerned that calls on the Agencies to increase the efficiency of their internal control system is not sufficiently efficient to avoid or detect persistent errors undermithreatening the legality and regularity of the Agencies’ transactions;
Amendment 48 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Urges, accordingly,Encourages the Agencies to strengthen their procurement procedures and, in particular, their procurement authorisation at the financing decision and work- programme level; notes, for example, that EMSA’s lack of underlying data to support the financing decision on planned operational procurement may put at risk the validity of the Agency’s decision;
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36
Paragraph 36
Amendment 64 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 37
Paragraph 37
Amendment 65 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40
Paragraph 40
40. UrEncourages the Agencies to provide, via their websites, information necessary to ensure transparency, especially financial transparency; urges in particular the Agencies to make available on their website the list of all contracts awarded over the last three years and the list of the Members of their Management Boards with their Declaration of Interests; calls on the Commission to continue its efforts to make this information fully accessible and integrate it into its financial transparency system;
Amendment 69 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43
Paragraph 43
Amendment 72 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43 a (new)
Paragraph 43 a (new)
43a. Welcomes the initiative of some Agencies, as for instance the Community Fisheries Control Agency whose Internal Audit Capability developed an internal training course and has provided the necessary training related to Ethics and Integrity at the Agency; it particularly welcomes that the training is obligatory to all staff to ensure awareness of ethical and organisational values, in particular ethical conduct, avoidance of conflicts of interest, fraud prevention and reporting of irregularities;
Amendment 76 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 45
Paragraph 45
45. Recalls that the European Ombudsman criticised EFSA for the way it assesses potential conflicts of interest and ‘revolving door’ cases; is concerned that other Agencies experience similar situations, and failed to stop and prevent the conflict of interest situations;
Amendment 89 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 50
Paragraph 50
Amendment 92 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 55 – subparagraph 1
Paragraph 55 – subparagraph 1
Considers that these deficiencies reduce the ability of the Agencies to: respond to possible allegations of arbitrary decisions on staff recruitment;, and urges the Agencies to take the appropriate redressing decisions, and; increase the trust of the Union citizens in the Agencies’ recruitment procedure;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 57
Paragraph 57
Amendment 95 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 58
Paragraph 58
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 61
Paragraph 61
Amendment 102 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 63
Paragraph 63
63. Calls, accordingly, on the Agencies’ Management Boards to duly take into account the recommendations made by the IAS, with a view to rapidly remedying the identified failings and to justify to the discharge authority rejections and delays in the implementation of the IAS recommendations;
Amendment 103 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 64
Paragraph 64
64. Notes that in reality both the IAS and to a large extent the Court of Auditors act as advisors to the Agencies and provide them with non-public recommendations to address their shortcomings; is seriously concerned that none of the audit institutions performs a control of the Agencies to be reflected in a public document; wonderWelcomes that the Court of Auditors has issued 32 public documents on EU Agencies in 2010 that were all published in the Official Journal of the European Union and are available on the websites iof both the IAS and the Court of Auditors internally support the Agencies to address their wrong, who is controlling them through public analyses and reports; calls therefore for a clear separation of tasks between the IAS and the Court of Auditorsand the Committee on Budgetary Control ;
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 65
Paragraph 65
Amendment 116 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 67 – introductory part
Paragraph 67 – introductory part
67. RecallWelcomes that in the previous discharges on the Agencies, the discharge authority called on the Court of Auditors to provide further information onCourt of Auditors publishes clear opinions on the reliability and the legality and regularity of Agencies’ accounts, as mandated by the Treaties:
Amendment 118 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 67 b (new)
Paragraph 67 b (new)
67b. Welcomes that the Court of Auditors provided in its evaluation of Agencies’ Annual activity reports a specific annexed table containing a comparison of 2009 versus 2010 operations thus providing information to the public in relation to these activities;
Amendment 119 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 68
Paragraph 68
Amendment 123 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 69
Paragraph 69
Amendment 128 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 70
Paragraph 70
70. Is seriously concerned that, despiteWelcomes the Court of Auditors’ inefformationts to provided in its Annual Work Programme and the persistent requests from Parliament, which is, after all, one of the European stakeholders, the two Special Reports related to Agencies dealing with: a) the discharge authority with an information on Agencies cost- benchmarking of Union Agencies and b)a conflicts of interest with thes management at the Agencies, are still not ready or made available; notes that the Special Report on cost benchmarking of the Agencies was initially planned by the Court of Auditors for October 2011 but has still not been issued, and that the Court of Auditors’ representative stated orally in Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control that it is still working on the 17th draft, but failed so far to send the final report or a draft to Parliament despite repeated requests; is concerned that in these circumstances the ‘conflict of interest management’ report will not be issued on time by the Court of Auditors and/or it will not reflect the real situationreport; awaits both reports to be delivered to Parliament in accordance with the Court of Auditors’ procedures and timetables and in line with professional standards on auditing;
Amendment 133 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 71
Paragraph 71
Amendment 138 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 74
Paragraph 74
Amendment 139 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 75
Paragraph 75
75. Notes that the large size and cost of certain Agencies’ Governing Boards and the high turnover of their members can lead to anmay lead to a certain level of ineffective decision-making body; calls, accordingly, on the Interinstitutional Working Group on Agencies to address this issue; suggests in addition that consideration be given to the possibility of merging governing boards for Agencies working in related fields to reduce meeting costs;
Amendment 150 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 79
Paragraph 79
79. Recalls once more that the Parliament, since its 2006 discharge resolution, called on the Agencies to consider setting up an inter- Agency disciplinary board to apply, in an impartial manner, disciplinary sanctions up to exclusion; notes, however, that this project remains difficult to take forward; calls on the Agency responsible for coordinating the network of Agencies to establish a network of staff at the grade required to be impartial members of the disciplinary board;
Amendment 155 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 81
Paragraph 81
Amendment 159 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 82
Paragraph 82