The European Parliament decided to grant the Executive Director of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) discharge in respect of the implementation of Authority’s budget for the financial year 2015.

The vote on the decision on discharge covers the closure of the accounts (in accordance with Annex IV, Article 5 (1) (a) to Parliament’s Rules of Procedure).

Noting that the Court of Auditors has stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the Office’s annual accounts for the financial year 2015 are reliable and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular, Parliament adopted by 515 votes to 113 with 4 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of recommendations, which form an integral part of the decision on discharge and which add to the general recommendations set out in the resolution on performance, financial management and control of EU agencies.

These recommendations may be summarised as follows:

• EASO’s financial statements: Parliament noted that the final budget of the EASO for the financial year 2015 was EUR 15 944 846 of which 94 % derives from the Union budget.
• Budget and financial management: it noted with concern that in 2015 the Office made 1 024 payments after the time limits set out in the Financial Regulation, representing an increase of 0.6 % compared to 2014. It welcomed measures put in place to reduce late payments.

Parliament also made a series of observations regarding commitments, carry-overs, procurement, recruitment procedures, the prevention and management of conflicts of interests and internal audits.

On performance, it noted that the Office developed further measures to assist Member States in need of special support in their asylum and reception systems and that it provided this special support to Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy. Moreover, it noted that in 2015 the Office further developed its activities to support Member States whose asylum and reception systems are subject to particular pressure, in particular by providing support to Greece and Italy and by strengthening the Office’s capacity to respond in a timely and effective manner to emergency situations.

Lastly, Parliament recognised that the growth of the Office’s budget in 2016 was significant in order to cope with additional tasks relating to the European Agenda on Migration, the hotspots approach, decisions of the EU Leaders Summit on Western Balkans and the EU-Turkey statement. It noted with satisfaction that a range of steps were taken by the Office to deal with such an unprecedented increase in tasks and recalled that in 2015 a record number of almost 1.4 million applications for international protection were made.

The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Inés AYALA SENDER (S&D, ES) on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) for the financial year 2015.

The committee called on the European Parliament to grant the Executive Director of the Office discharge in respect of the implementation of the agency’s budget for the financial year 2015.

Noting that the Court of Auditors stated that it had obtained reasonable assurance that the annual accounts of the Office for the financial year 2015 were reliable and that the underlying transactions were legal and regular, Members called on Parliament to approve the closure of the Office’s accounts. They made, however, a number of recommendations that needed to be taken into account when the discharge is granted, in addition to the general recommendations that appear in the draft resolution on performance, financial management and control of EU agencies:

• EASO’s financial statements: Members noted that the final budget of the EASO for the financial year 2015 was EUR 15 944 846 of which 94 % derives from the Union budget.
• Budget and financial management: Members noted with concern that in 2015 the Office made 1 024 payments after the time limits set out in the Financial Regulation, representing an increase of 0.6 % compared to 2014. They welcomed measures put in place to reduce late payments.

Members also made a series of observations regarding commitments, carry-overs, procurement, recruitment procedures, the prevention and management of conflicts of interests and internal audits.

Lastly, Members recognised that the growth of the Office’s budget in 2016 was significant in order to cope with additional tasks relating to the European Agenda on Migration, the hotspots approach, decisions of the EU Leaders Summit on Western Balkans and the EU-Turkey statement. They noted with satisfaction that a range of steps were taken by the Office to deal with such an unprecedented increase in tasks and recalled that in 2015 a record number of almost 1.4 million applications for international protection were made.

PURPOSE: presentation by the Commission of the consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for the financial year 2015, as part of the 2015 discharge procedure.

Analysis of the accounts of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO).

CONTENT: the organisational governance of the EU consists of institutions, agencies and other EU bodies whose expenditure is included in the general budget of the Union.

The EU's operational expenditure of these institutions takes different forms, depending on how the money is paid out and managed.

From 2014 onwards, the Commission classifies its expenditure as follows:

• Direct management: the budget is implemented directly by the Commission services.
• Indirect management: the Commission confers tasks of implementation of the budget to bodies of EU law or national law, such as the EU agencies.
• Shared management: under this method of budget implementation tasks are delegated to Member States. About 80 % of the expenditure falls under this management mode covering such areas as agricultural spending and structural actions.

This Commission document concerns the EU's consolidated accounts for the year 2015 and details how spending by the EU institutions and bodies was carried out. The consolidated annual accounts of the EU provide financial information on the activities of the institutions, agencies and other bodies of the EU from an accrual accounting and budgetary perspective.

It is the responsibility of the Commission's Accounting Officer to prepare the EU's consolidated annual accounts and ensure that they present fairly, in all material aspects, the financial position, the result of the operations and the cash flows of the EU institutions and bodies, including the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), with a view to granting discharge.

Discharge procedure: the final step of a budget lifecycle is the discharge of the budget for a given financial year. It 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 (and other EU bodies) from its responsibility for management of a given budget by marking the end of that budget's existence. The European Parliament is the discharge authority within the EU.

The discharge procedure may produce three outcomes: (i) the granting; (ii) postponement or; (iii) the refusal of the discharge.

The final discharge report including specific recommendations to the Commission for action is adopted in plenary by the European Parliament and are subject to an annual follow up report in which the Commission outlines the concrete actions it has taken to implement the recommendations made.

Each agency is subject to its own discharge procedure, including the EASO.

The European Asylum Support Office (EASO): the Office was set up under Regulation 439/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council. Its main aim is to help to improve the implementation of the Common European Asylum System (the CEAS).

As regards the Office’s accounts, these are presented in detail in the document on the consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for 2015:

Commitment appropriations:

-          committed: EUR 17 million;

-          paid: EUR 16 million;

-          carried-over: EUR 1 million.

Payment appropriations:

-          committed: EUR 18 million;

-          paid: EUR 13 million.

-          carried-over: EUR 2 million.

For further details on expenditure, please refer to the final accounts of the EASO.