PURPOSE: presentation by the Commission of the
consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for the
financial year 2013, as part of the 2013 discharge
procedure.
Analysis of the accounts of the EU Institutions:
Committee of the Regions.
Legal reminder: the
consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for the year
2013 have been prepared on the basis of the information presented
by the institutions and bodies under Article 148(2) of the
Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the
European Union. They were prepared in accordance with Title IX of
this Financial Regulation.
(1) 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
2013, including the different expenses of the European
institutions. It should be recalled that only the Commission budget
contains administrative appropriations and operating
appropriations. The other Institutions have only administrative
appropriations.
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.
Discharge procedure: 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. When granting discharge, Parliament may make
observations which it considers important and often recommends the
Commission and the other institutions to take actions concerning
these matters.
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.
The document also 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 the Committee of the
Regions appropriations for the financial year
2013: the document comprises a series
of detailed annexes, the most important concerning the
implementation of the budget. The appropriations available for 2013
amounted to EUR 87 million with 97% committed.
Additional information on the management of resources
of the Committee can be found in the 2013 Report on the budgetary and financial
management of the Committee of the
Regions.
(3) Budgetary implementation -
conclusions: in more general and
political terms, the implementation of the Committees
budget in 2013 was marked by the following:
- the continuation of legislative monitoring with the
adoption of opinions by the Committee of Regions (73 opinions in
2013 + 7 resolutions);
- the continuation of cooperation with other EU
institutions and regional and local authorities.
In 2013, the Committee met 6 times in plenary and
organised 2 extraordinary sessions including one in Dublin and one
in Vilnius under the rotating Presidency of the EU.
Furthermore, the report also noted the
following:
- monitoring of specific platforms and networks
established by the Committee, such as Europe 2020 Monitoring or
Subsidiarity Monitoring;
- organising an interinstitutional dialogue on the
Europe 2020 sustainable growth strategy with the presence Mr Van
Rompuy (22 March 2013) and an Open Days, specifically dedicated to
this issue;
- monitoring of the 2014-2020 financial framework
negotiations within the budgets for local investment;
- organising debates with EU citizens in the framework
of the European Year of Citizens 2013, devoted in particular to the
European elections in 2014;
- strengthening the external dimension of the
Committee's activities as regards foreign policy, the EU
neighbourhood policy and cooperation, with a focus on Mediterranean
countries;
- negotiation of a new administrative cooperation
framework with the European Parliament and renewed framework for
the management of multilingualism within the
institution.