BETA

Procedure completed, awaiting publication in Official Journal



2017/2167(DEC) 2016 discharge: European Chemicals Agency (ECHA)
RoleCommitteeRapporteurShadows
Lead CONT STAES Bart (Verts/ALE) SARVAMAA Petri (EPP), LIBERADZKI Bogusław (S&D), FITTO Raffaele (ECR), ALI Nedzhmi (ALDE), DE JONG Dennis (GUE/NGL), VALLI Marco (EFD), KAPPEL Barbara (ENF)
Opinion ENVI VĂLEAN Adina-Ioana (EPP)
Lead committee dossier: CONT/8/10815

Activites

  • 2018/04/18 Debate in Parliament
  • 2018/03/23 Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading
    • A8-0086/2018 summary
  • 2018/03/20 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • 2017/09/13 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • 2017/06/26 Non-legislative basic document published
    • COM(2017)0365 summary
    • DG {'url': 'http://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/budget_en', 'title': 'Budget'}, OETTINGER Günther

Documents

  • Non-legislative basic document published: COM(2017)0365
  • Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading: A8-0086/2018
  • Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T8-0143/2018
AmendmentsDossier
19 2017/2167(DEC)
2017/12/13 ENVI 6 amendments...
source: 615.428
2018/03/02 CONT 13 amendments...
source: 618.244

History

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

activities/4/docs/0
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http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?secondRef=TOC&language=EN&reference=20180418&type=CRE
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Debate in Parliament
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Debate in Parliament
activities/4/docs
  • url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P8-TA-2018-0143 type: Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading title: T8-0143/2018
activities/4/type
Old
Debate in plenary scheduled
New
Debate in Parliament
procedure/stage_reached
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Awaiting Parliament 1st reading / single reading / budget 1st stage
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Procedure completed, awaiting publication in Official Journal
activities/3/docs/0/text
  • The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Bart STAES (Greens/EFA, BE) on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) for the financial year 2016.

    The committee called on the European Parliament to grant the Executive Director of the Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the agency’s budget for the financial year 2016.

    Noting that the Court of Auditors stated that it had obtained reasonable assurance that the annual accounts of the Agency for the financial year 2016 were reliable and that the underlying transactions were legal and regular, Members called on Parliament to approve the closure of the Agency’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:

    • Agency’s financial statements: Members noted that the final budget of the Agency for the financial year 2016 was EUR 110 840 957, representing a decrease of 7.82 % compared to 2015.
    • Budget and financial management:  budget monitoring efforts during the financial year 2016 resulted in a budget implementation rate of 97 %, representing a decrease of 1.48 %. In 2016, the fees and charges collected covered 46 % of the Agency’s expenditure including for the first time a high proportion of fees from authorisation applications. Members called in this respect for safeguards to be built into the Agency’s work so that it can remain independent vis-à-vis the industry, and, in particular, to retain a critical, independent attitude towards industry´s own research.
    • They also noted with concern that the Union regulatory agencies responsible for the risk assessment of regulated products, in particular the Agency and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), do not have sufficient resources to effectively fulfil certain responsibilities. The Agency and EFSA should therefore be granted sufficient resources in order to carry out their specific responsibilities.
    • Commitments and carry-overs: carry-overs of committed appropriations remained high for REACH operational expenditure at EUR 10.1 million, i.e. 39 % (compared to  EUR 7.3 million in 2015, i.e. 32 %) and are even higher for biocides operational expenditure at EUR 1.3 million, i.e. 68 % (compared to EUR 1.5 million in 2015, i.e. 74 %). Members drew attention to the Court of Auditors’ comment advising the Agency to consider increasing the use of differentiated budget appropriations to better reflect the multi-annual nature of operations and unavoidable delays between the signature of contracts, deliveries and payments. The Agency has already created a differentiated budget line for 2017, which will reduce the nominal carry-over rate for 2017 and beyond.

    Members also made a series of observations regarding transfers, procurement and staff policy, the prevention and management of conflicts of interests and internal audits and controls.

    On performance, Members highlighted that in December 2016 the Agency started together with European Food Safety Authority to draft guidance in identifying chemicals with endocrine disrupting properties.

    Members called on the Commission to launch a policy debate with relevant stakeholders in order to review Union legislation related to risk assessment for food, chemicals and related products and the effectiveness of such legislation.

    Brexit: Members stressed that a future decrease of the Agency’s revenue resulting from the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the Union is possible. They called on the Agency to report to the discharge authority on the mitigating measures that may be adopted.

    They noted that the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the Union also poses operational risks for the Agency since the Union chemicals legislation which the Agency manages (REACH, BPR, CLP and PIC Regulations) are also internal market regulatory laws. Reducing the jurisdiction to which these regulations apply to EU-27 will create an additional workload for providing advice and assistance to the United Kingdom’s companies which will be in a ‘third country’ as well as a transitional workload caused by transferring regulatory work from the United Kingdom to the EU27.

    The Agency is called on to proactively plan and prepare for any and all such potential losses.

activities/3/docs
  • url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&mode=XML&reference=A8-2018-0086&language=EN type: Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading title: A8-0086/2018
activities/3
date
2018-03-23T00:00:00
body
EP
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Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading
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Old
Awaiting committee decision
New
Awaiting Parliament 1st reading / single reading / budget 1st stage
activities/2
date
2018-03-20T00:00:00
body
EP
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Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
committees
activities/2/date
Old
2018-04-16T00:00:00
New
2018-04-18T00:00:00
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Old
Indicative plenary sitting date, 1st reading/single reading
New
Debate in plenary scheduled
activities/1/committees/0/shadows/2
group
ECR
name
FITTO Raffaele
committees/0/shadows/2
group
ECR
name
FITTO Raffaele
activities/2
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2018-04-16T00:00:00
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EP
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activities/0/docs/0/text
  • 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 Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

    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 cash flows of the EU institutions and bodies, including the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), 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 ECHA.

    The European Chemicals Agency: the Agency, which is located in Helsinki (FI), was created by Council Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 to manage and steer the implementation of the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation.

    Main achievements in 2016: these include:

    • further advancement in the integration of REACH and the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) regulation;
    • publishing its second five years report on the operation of REACH providing input into the second review of the REACH Regulation;
    • the fees and charges collected covered 46% of the Agency’s expenditure including for the first time a high proportion of fees from authorisation applications. Managing the annual budget was more challenging than in previous years, as the magnitude of the fee-based financing was difficult to foresee, particularly for the biocide applications;
    • signing a delegation agreement with the Commission in December 2016 to build an EU-wide observatory for nanomaterials that aims at giving objective and reliable information on markets and safety aspects of nanomaterials in the EU market;
    • maintaining an open dialogue with the EU institutions, in particular the European Parliament.

    As regards the accounts, ECHA is financed through fees paid by industry and by an EU balancing subsidy.

    Commitment appropriations:

    • available: EUR 113 million;
    • made: EUR 110 million.

    Payment appropriations:

    • available: EUR 124 million;
    • paid: EUR 106 million.

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

activities/1/committees/0/shadows/5
group
ENF
name
KAPPEL Barbara
committees/0/shadows/5
group
ENF
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KAPPEL Barbara
activities/0/commission/0
DG
Commissioner
OETTINGER Günther
other/0
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EC
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OETTINGER Günther
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date
2017-09-13T00:00:00
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Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
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CONT/8/10815
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Preparatory phase in Parliament
New
Awaiting committee decision
committees/0/date
2017-09-14T00:00:00
committees/0/rapporteur
  • group: Verts/ALE name: STAES Bart
committees/0/shadows
  • group: EPP name: SARVAMAA Petri
  • group: S&D name: LIBERADZKI Bogusław
  • group: ALDE name: ALI Nedzhmi
  • group: GUE/NGL name: DE JONG Dennis
  • group: EFD name: VALLI Marco
activities
  • date: 2017-06-26T00:00:00 docs: url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_institutions/commission_europeenne/com/2017/0365/COM_COM(2017)0365_EN.pdf celexid: CELEX:52017DC0365:EN type: Non-legislative basic document published title: COM(2017)0365 body: EC type: Non-legislative basic document published commission:
committees
  • body: EP responsible: True committee_full: Budgetary Control committee: CONT
  • body: EP responsible: False committee: ENVI date: 2017-08-31T00:00:00 committee_full: Environment, Public Health and Food Safety rapporteur: group: EPP name: VĂLEAN Adina-Ioana
links
other
    procedure
    type
    DEC - Discharge procedure
    title
    2016 discharge: European Chemicals Agency (ECHA)
    stage_reached
    Preparatory phase in Parliament
    reference
    2017/2167(DEC)
    subject
    8.70.03.06 2016 discharge