Activites

• 2017/04/27 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T8-0188/2017 summary

    The European Parliament decided to grant the bio-based industries (BBI) Joint Undertaking’s Executive Director discharge in respect of the implementation of the joint undertaking’s budget for the financial year 2015. Based on the statement of assurance provided by the Court of Auditors concerning the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions, it decided to approve the closure of the accounts of the Joint Undertaking for the same financial year. Noting that the Court of Auditors has stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the Joint Undertaking’s annual accounts for the financial year 2015 are reliable and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular, Parliament adopted by 493 votes to 109 with 14 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of recommendations which form an integral part of the decision on discharge. General: Parliament noted that the Joint Undertaking reached operational capacity and financial autonomy on 26 October 2015 without any issues of a systemic nature during the first months. It welcomed the fact that the first projects funded by the Joint Undertaking leveraged a total contribution of EUR 71 million from private partners. Financial management: the Joint Undertaking’s annual accounts provide for the final 2015 budget available for implementation included commitment appropriations of EUR 209 422 797 and payment appropriations of EUR 21 075 192, the utilisation rates for commitment and payment appropriations of which were 87 % and 89 % respectively. Members also noted that: the total operational commitments in 2015 (namely, EUR 180 390 497) were made at a global level and related to two 2015 calls for proposals, for which the award procedures were ongoing on 31 December 2015; in the two months following the Joint Undertaking’s financial autonomy, it dealt successfully with the ongoing projects of the 2014 call; no in-kind contributions were reported by members other than the Union to the Joint Undertaking by 31 December 2015; private sector members face difficulties in presenting their accounts by the deadline of 31 January. Members feared that this risks becoming a recurring issue for most joint undertakings and goes against the general trend towards simplification. Members welcomed the fact that the Commission presented clear guidelines for the budgetary reporting and financial management of BBI on 20 December 2016 following the Court’s recommendation. Other observations: the resolution also contained a series of observations on procurement and recruitment procedures, the legal framework and the prevention and management of conflicts of interests. Parliament welcomed the fact that the Joint Undertaking proceeded with recruitment procedures in 2016. Lastly, the Joint Undertaking is invited to incorporate into its annual activity report a section on its anti-fraud strategy.

• 2017/04/26 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 2017/03/29 Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading
  • A8-0103/2017 summary

    The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Miroslav POCHE (S&D, CZ) on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the bio-based industries (BBI) Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2015. The committee called on the European Parliament to grant the joint undertaking’s Executive Director discharge in respect of the implementation of the joint undertaking’s budget for the financial year 2015. Noting that the Court of Auditors issued a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions for the financial year 2015, Members called on Parliament to approve the closure of the joint undertaking’s accounts. They made, however, a number of recommendations that need to be taken into account when the discharge is granted. They may be summarised as follows: General: Members noted that the Joint Undertaking as it reached operational capacity and financial autonomy on 26 October 2015 without any issues of a systemic nature during the first months. They welcomed the fact that the first projects funded by the Joint Undertaking leveraged a total contribution of EUR 71 million from private partners. Financial management: the Joint Undertaking’s annual accounts provide for the final 2015 budget available for implementation included commitment appropriations of EUR 209 422 797 and payment appropriations of EUR 21 075 192, the utilisation rates for commitment and payment appropriations of which were 87 % and 89 % respectively. The total operational commitments in 2015 (namely, EUR 180 390 497) were made at a global level and related to two 2015 calls for proposals, for which the award procedures were ongoing on 31 December 2015. No in-kind contributions were reported by members other than the Union to the Joint Undertaking by 31 December 2015. The report pointed out that private sector members face difficulties in presenting their accounts by the deadline of 31 January. Members feared that this risks becoming a recurring issue for most joint undertakings and goes against the general trend towards simplification. Members welcomed the fact that the Commission presented clear guidelines for the budgetary reporting and financial management of BBI on 20 December 2016 following the Court’s recommendation. Other observations: the report also contained a series of observations on procurement and recruitment procedures, the legal framework and the prevention and management of conflicts of interests. The Joint Undertaking is invited to incorporate into its annual activity report a section on its anti-fraud strategy.

• 2017/03/23 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
• 2016/10/04 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 2016/07/11 Non-legislative basic document published
  • COM(2016)0475 summary

    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 bio-based industries joint undertaking - BBI. 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 BBI, 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 bio-based industries joint undertaking - BBI. The bio-based industries joint undertaking: the BBI, a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) set up in 2014 and located in Brussels (BE), was established in accordance with Council Regulation (EU) No 560/2014 establishing the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking. The BBI’s main objective is to seek a more resource efficient and sustainable low-carbon economy and increase economic growth and employment, in particularly in rural areas, by developing sustainable and competitive bio-based industries in Europe based on advanced biorefineries that source their biomass sustainably. As regards the BBI’s accounts, these are presented in detail in the document published by the Joint Undertaking (please refer to the final accounts of the BBI).

  • DG {'url': 'http://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/budget_en', 'title': 'Budget'}, GEORGIEVA Kristalina

Documents

• Non-legislative basic document published: COM(2016)0475
• Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading: A8-0103/2017
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T8-0188/2017

Amendments

Dossier

11

2016/2197(DEC) 2017/03/06 CONT 11 amendments... Amendment 1 # Proposal for a decision 1 Citation 8 a (new) - having regard the ECA special Report No 15/2012 "Management of conflict of interest in selected EU Agencies"; Amendment 10 # Motion for a resolution Paragraph 20 a (new) 20 a. Calls upon the Joint Undertaking to report to the discharge authority regarding its whistleblowing policy; asks the Joint Undertaking to provide by June 2017 details on the whistle-blower cases in 2015 (if any) and how they were handled and finalized; deplores the fact that it has no rules on "revolving doors" and urges the Joint Undertaking to put in place such rules as a matter of urgency; reiterates that only integrity and transparency uphold the public trust; urges the Joint Undertaking to put in place measures to prevent "revolving doors" establishing dissuasive sanctions such us the reduction of pensions or prohibition to work at least three years in similar bodies; Amendment 11 # Motion for a resolution Paragraph 21 21. Notes that the Court’s report refers to the fact that the Commission issued guidelines to the Joint Undertakings relating to rules on conflicts of interests, including a common template for the declaration of absence of a conflict of interest, which the Joint Undertaking should incorporate into its procedures; invites the Joint Undertaking to report to the discharge authority on the completion of those declarations;deleted Amendment 2 # Ryszard CZARNECKI, Raffaele FITTO, Notis MARIAS Proposal for a decision 1 Paragraph 1 1. Grants the Executive Director of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking discharge in respect of the implementation of the Joint Undertaking’s budget for the financial year 2015 / Postpones its decision on discharge to the Executive Director of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking in respect of the implementation of the Joint Undertaking’s budget for the financial year 2015; Amendment 3 # Ryszard CZARNECKI, Raffaele FITTO, Notis MARIAS Proposal for a decision 2 Paragraph 1 1. Approves the closure of the accounts of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2015 / Postpones the closure of the accounts of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2015; Amendment 4 # Brian HAYES Motion for a resolution Paragraph 11 11. Points out that private sector members face difficulties in presenting their IKOP figures by the deadline of 31 January, and is very concerned that this risks becoming a recurring issue for most joint undertakings; notes in this respect that, in combination with the regular reporting period for IKOPs (every 18 months), this double reporting goes against the general trend towards simplification; Amendment 5 # Brian HAYES Motion for a resolution Paragraph 13 13. NotExpresses with concern that the 2015 administrative budget was prepared on the assumption that by the end of the year, all 22 Joint Undertaking staff would have been recruited and operational; notes that only 13 posts were occupied which had an obvious impact on staff-related costs, however, the unused budget appropriations were reactivated in the 2016 budget; welcomes that the Joint Undertaking proceeded with recruitment procedures in 2016 and has filled 20 out of 22 posts; Amendment 6 # Zigmantas BALČYTIS Motion for a resolution Paragraph 16 a (new) 16a. Notes that internal control procedures have been established within the Joint Undertaking in order to provide a reasonable assurance that fraud and irregularities will be detected and prevented; Amendment 7 # Motion for a resolution Paragraph 19 a (new) 19 a. Notes that in July 2015, the Commission issued guidelines to the Joint Undertakings related to rules on conflicts of interest, including a common template for the declaration of absence of a conflict of interest, which should have been incorporated by the Joint Undertakings into its procedures; notes however that no CV or declaration of interest of the Executive director, Governing board or scientific committee are available on Joint Undertaking's web site; urges the Joint Undertaking to urgently publish these documents; urges however the Joint Undertaking to enact the submission of declaration of interest and instead of declaration of the absence of conflict of interests as self evaluation of conflicts of interest is a conflict of interest in itself, leaving the evaluation of these statements to a third independent party; evaluation of a situation of conflict of interest must be done by a third party; asks the Joint Undertaking to report by June 2017 these changes and to indicate who is checking the situations of conflicts of interest; reiterates that transparency is key to the public trust; Amendment 8 # Motion for a resolution Paragraph 19 b (new) 19 b. Calls upon the Joint Undertakings to present to the discharge authority a list with its meetings with lobbyist and professional associations; asks the Court to present the minutes of these meetings even in a confidential procedure; Amendment 9 # Motion for a resolution Paragraph 20 20. Notes that the Court’s report refers to the fact that the Commission adopted an anti-fraud strategy in June 2011 which was updated in March 2015 to take account of changes introduced by Horizon 2020; invites the Joint Undertaking to incorporate a section on the anti-fraud strategy into its annual activity report; calls upon the Joint Undertaking to also publish the Court of Auditor's report; reminds that transparency is crucial to upholding the public trust in the Union and its institutions; source: 599.869

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)