PURPOSE : to grant discharge to the Economic and Social Committee for the financial year 2002.

LEGISLATIVE ACT : Decision 2004/726/EC of the European Parliament concerning discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the 2002 financial year - Section VI- Economic and Social Committee.

CONTENT : with this present Decision, the European Parliament gives discharge to the Secretary-General of the Economic and Social Committee in respect of the implementation of the budget for the 2002 financial year.

This Decision is in conformity with the European Parliament's resolution approved on 21 April 2004 and which is accompanied by a series of which complete the discharge decision (please refer to the summary of the opinion).

PURPOSE : to present the revenue and expenditure account and the balance sheet concerning the activities of the budget for the financial year 2002 (Section VI – Economic and Social Committee).

CONTENT : this document sets out the amount of expenditure and the balance sheet for the other institutions of the Union (except the Commission) for 2002, in particular the Economic and Social Committee (ESC). The initial 2002 budget of the ESC was EUR 76 million.

The budget was marked by the following elements :

- new budgetary accounting system : the development of the new general accounting and budgetary systems is continued which, in turn, improves in the financial management of the Committee.

- SAB : given the difficult financial perspectives in 2003, the budgetary authority had asked for the budgetary surplus of the ESC to be identified and to anticipate the 2002 expenditure appropriations initially foreseen in 2003 : this was to be done with the releasing of EUR 3.2 million of which a major part (EUR 2.2 million) was subject to a supplementary amending budget at the disposition of the other institutions to finance their own operations.

- physical inventory : this inventory carried out in 2002 highlighted certain problems which were amended in 2003 (inventory updated via the database which was created for this purpose for the institutions).

- interinstitutional cooperation : in 2002 a technical assistance to certain agencies. The European Agency of Reconstruction in Thessaloniki had been proposed once again to receive know-how from the ESC.

Other important points to be retained from the implementation of the 2002 budget concern the cooperation with the Committee of the Regions (renovation of the Belliard Building and the physical inventory).