PURPOSE: presentation by the Commission of the
consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for the
financial year 2016, as part of the 2016 discharge
procedure.
Analysis of the accounts of the European Medicines
Agency (EMA).
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.
This Commission document concerns the EU's
consolidated accounts for the year 2016 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 cashflows
of the EU institutions and bodies, including the European
Medicines Agency (EMA), 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 European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The European Medicines Agency: the Agency, which is located in London (UK), was
created by Council
Regulation (EEC) No 2309/93, which was replaced by Regulation
(EC) No 726/2004 of the European Parliament and of the
Council and its role is the coordination of the scientific
resources made available by the national authorities in order to
ensure the evaluation and supervision of medicinal products for
human or veterinary use on the basis of a centralised
procedure.
As regards Agency’s accounts, these are presented in detail in the document on the
consolidated annual accounts of the European Union for
2016:
Commitment appropriations:
- available: EUR 314
million;
- made: EUR 301
million.
Payment
appropriations:
- available: EUR 347
million;
- made: EUR 294
million.
For further details on expenditure, please refer to
the final
accounts of the EMA.