The European Parliament decided to grant the Executive Director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI2) Joint Undertaking 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 501 votes to 106 with 8 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of recommendations which form an integral part of the decision on discharge.

Financial management: the final budget of the Joint Undertaking in 2015 available for implementation included commitment appropriations of EUR 315 269 000 and payment appropriations of EUR 195 411 000. Members noted that:

• budget monitoring efforts during the financial year 2015 resulted in a budget implementation rate of 91.04 %, representing a decrease of 1.34 % compared to the year 2014. The execution rate was at 72.68 %, representing a decrease of 1.22 % compared to 2014 mainly due to delays in the negotiations for several Horizon 2020 projects;
• in the case of operational activities, the implementation rate was 91.17 % for commitment appropriations and 72.74 % for payment appropriations.

Members welcomed the fact that the Commission presented clear guidelines for the budgetary reporting and financial management of IMI2 on 20 December 2016 following the Court’s recommendation.

Other observations: the resolution also contained a series of observations on the anti-fraud strategy and the prevention and management of conflicts of interests. The Joint Undertaking established ex ante and internal control procedures to prevent fraud and irregularities.

Members regretted to discover that one case of suspicion of fraud was submitted to the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) for assessment and the latter decided not to open an investigation. They highlighted the important role of whistle-blowers and internal auditing procedures in detecting irregularities.

The Joint Undertaking is encouraged to continue in its effort towards higher participation of SMEs in its projects. 15.6 % of beneficiaries in 2015 were SMEs, which represents a slight decrease in comparison to 2014.

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 Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI2) 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 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:

Financial management: the final budget of the Joint Undertaking in 2015 available for implementation included commitment appropriations of EUR 315 269 000 and payment appropriations of EUR 195 411 000. Budget monitoring efforts during the financial year 2015 resulted in a budget implementation rate of 91.04 %, representing a decrease of 1.34 % compared to the year 2014. The execution rate was at 72.68 %, representing a decrease of 1.22 % compared to 2014 mainly due to delays in the negotiations for several Horizon 2020 projects.

Members welcomed the fact that the Commission presented clear guidelines for the budgetary reporting and financial management of IMI2 on 20 December 2016 following the Court’s recommendation.

Other observations: the report also contained a series of observations on the anti-fraud strategy and the prevention and management of conflicts of interests.

Members regretted to discover that one case of suspicion of fraud was submitted to the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) for assessment and the latter decided not to open an investigation. They highlighted the important role of whistle-blowers and internal auditing procedures in detecting irregularities.

The Joint Undertaking is encouraged to continue in its effort towards higher participation of SMEs in its projects. 15.6 % of beneficiaries in 2015 were SMEs, which represents a slight decrease in comparison to 2014.

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 IMI 2 Joint Undertaking.

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 IMI 2 JU, 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 IMI 2 JU.

IMI 2 Joint Undertaking: the IMI 2 Joint undertaking, which is located in Brussels, was set up by Council Regulation (EU) No 557/2014, for a period up to 31 December 2024. The IMI 2 Joint Undertaking aims to increase clinical trial success rates of priority medicines identified by the World health Organization and where possible, reduce the time to reach clinical proof of concept in medicine development for certain diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

As regards the JU’s accounts, these are presented in detail in the document published by the Joint Undertaking (please refer to the final accounts of the IMI 2 JU).