The European Parliament adopted a decision concerning the discharge to be granted to the Secretary-General of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2012.

In its resolution accompanying the discharge decision, adopted by 518 votes to 81 with 6 abstentions, Parliament concluded, with the Court of Auditors, that the payments as a whole for the year ended on 31 December 2012 for administrative and other expenditure of the institutions and bodies were free from material error.

Parliament also noted with satisfaction that in its 2012 annual report, the Court of Auditors observed that no significant weaknesses had been identified in respect of the audited topics related to the human resources and the procurement for the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).

Budgetary and financial management: Parliament noted that in 2012 the EESC budget amounted to EUR 128.816 million, with a utilisation rate of 96.8%. It stated that the 96.8% budget implementation rate for 2012 is higher than rate for 2011. It noted the rise by 0.2% in the 2012 budget compared to the previous annual budget. It supported the EESC's efforts to limit the budgets of the coming years, thereby ensuring a flat rate increase.

EESC’s framework action: Parliament also made a series of observations on the daily management of the EESC and called for:

• improvements in interinstitutional cooperation to rationalise human resources in the EESC Joint Services and/Committee of the Regions (CoR ), especially in translation;
• continuous monitoring of the staff structure to ensure that the organisation of posts is fully efficient and helps to improve the allocation of the budget;
• the preparation of negotiations on the new administrative cooperation agreement with the CoR, to achieve budget savings between the two institutions;
• increased use of videoconferencing;
• further reductions in interpretation costs;
• the modernisation of the IT infrastructure.

Lastly, Parliament called for the rationalisation of human resources in the Joint Services (EESC/CoR) and in translation. It found the on-going contacts between the EESC, the CoR and Parliament in this matter a positive contribution to the rationalisation of resources.

The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Bogusław SONIK (EPP, PL) in which it called on the European Parliament to grant discharge to the Secretary-General of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in respect of the implementation of the European Economic and Social Committee's budget for the financial year 2012.

Members welcomed the fact that, on the basis of its audit work, the Court of Auditors concluded that the payments as a whole for the year ended on 31 December 2012 for administrative and other expenditure of the institutions and bodies were free from material error. They observed that no significant weaknesses had been identified in respect of the audited topics related to human resources and procurement for the EESC.

Budgetary and financial management: Members noted that in 2012 the EESC budget amounted to EUR 128.816 million, with a utilisation rate of 96.8%. They stated that the 96.8% budget implementation rate for 2012 is higher than rate for 2011. They noted the rise by 0.2% in the 2012 budget compared to the previous annual budget. They supported the EESC's efforts to limit the budgets of the coming years, thereby ensuring a flat rate increase.

EESC’s framework action: Members also made a series of observations on the daily management of the EESC and called for:

• improvements in interinstitutional cooperation to rationalise human resources in the EESC Joint Services and/Committee of the Regions (CoR ), especially in translation;
• continuous monitoring of the staff structure to ensure that the organisation of posts is fully efficient and helps to improve the allocation of the budget;
• the preparation of negotiations on the new administrative cooperation agreement with the CoR, to achieve budget savings between the two institutions;
• increased use of videoconferencing;
• further reductions in interpretation costs;
• strengthening cooperation with other institutions to develop a unified methodology of presenting the translation costs;
• the modernisation of the IT infrastructure.

PURPOSE: presentation by the Commission of the consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for the financial year 2012, as part of the 2012 discharge procedure.

Analysis of the accounts of the EU Institutions: Section VI - European Economic and Social Committee.

Legal reminder: the consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for the year 2012 have been prepared on the basis of the information presented by the institutions and bodies under Article 129(2) of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Union. They were prepared in accordance with Title VII of the Financial Regulation and with the accounting principles, rules and methods set out in the notes to the financial statements.

The objective of the financial statements is to provide information about the financial position, performance and cashflow of a body that is useful to a wide range of users. The objective is to provide information that is useful for decision making, and to demonstrate the accountability of the entity for the resources entrusted to it.

Purpose: the document helps to bring insight into the EU budget mechanism and the way in which the budget has been managed and spent in 2012. It recalls that the European Union's operational expenditure covers the various headings of the financial framework and takes different forms, depending on how the money is paid out and managed. In accordance with the Financial Regulation, the Commission implements the general budget using the following methods: direct or indirect centralised management (by means of bodies or agencies of public law or other); decentralised management where the Commission delegates certain tasks for the implementation of the budget to third countries; and, thirdly, shared management where budget implementation tasks are delegated to Member States, in areas such as agricultural expenditure and structural actions.

The document also presents the different financial actors involved in the budget process (accounting officers, internal officers and authorising officers) and recalls their respective roles in the context of the tasks of sound financial management.

Amongst the other legal elements relating to the implementation of the EU budget presented in this document, the paper focuses on the following issues:

• accounting principles applicable to the management of EU spending (business continuity, consistency of accounting methods, comparability of information ...);
• consolidation methods of figures for all major controlled entities (the consolidated financial statements of the EU comprise all significant controlled entities –institutions, organisations and agencies);
• the recognition of financial assets in the EU (tangible and intangible assets, financial assets and other miscellaneous investments);
• the way in which EU public expenditure is committed and spent, including pre-financing (cash advances intended for the benefit of an EU organ);
• the means of recovery following irregularities detected;
• the modus operandi of the accounting system;
• the audit process followed by the European Parliament's granting of the discharge.

To recap, the final control is the discharge of the budget for a given financial year. The discharge represents the political aspect of the external control of budget implementation and is the decision by which the European Parliament, acting on a Council recommendation, "releases" the Commission from its responsibility for management of a given budget by marking the end of that budget's existence.

The document also details specific expenditure of the institutions, in particular: i) pensions of former Members and officials of institutions; ii) joint sickness insurance scheme and iii) buildings.

Lastly, the document presents a series of tables and detailed technical indicators on (i) the balance sheet; (ii) the economic outturn account; (iii) cashflow tables; (iv) technical annexes concerning the financial statements.

2) Implementation of appropriations under Section VI of the budget for the financial year 2012: the document also comprises a series of detailed tables, the most important concerning the implementation of the budget. Concerning the expenditure of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), the information drawn from the EESC’s Annual Activity Report 2012 shows that:

• commitments granted to this institution for 2012 were EUR 128.8 million;
• amount actually spent: EUR 124.7 million;
• the rate of budgetary implementation was 96.8%

3) Budgetary implementation - conclusions: in more general and political terms, the Committee’s budgetary implementation for the financial year 2012 was marked by the following:

in the context of the Danish Presidency: promotion of sustainable production and consumption in the EU; 7th Environmental Action Programme (EAP), follow-up to the 6th EAP; Energy education; the digital market as a driver for growth; people with disabilities: employment and accessibility;

in the context of the Cypriot Presidency: strengthening the participatory processes and the involvement of local authorities, NGOs and social partners in the implementation of Europe 2020; getting EU energy islands connected - growth, competitiveness, solidarity and sustainability in the EU internal energy market; developing a macro-regional strategy for the Mediterranean what benefits for island Member States.

In parallel, internally, the EESC’s activities involved:

• budgetary consolidation and the management of the budget procedure with a view to the complete autonomy of the Committee’s budget;
• mid-term evaluation of the cooperation agreement with the Committee of the Regions;
• modernisation of member support services and the digitisation of the archives (Mota Project);
• creation of a pilot action to strengthen the involvement of civil society in the Committee’s activities, thanks to the creation of a data base of civil society organisations.