Activites

• 2018/04/18 Debate in Parliament
  • T8-0147/2018
• 2018/03/23 Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading
  • A8-0087/2018 summary

    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 Institute for Gender Equality for the financial year 2016. The committee called on the European Parliament to grant the Director of the Institute 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 Institute 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 Institute’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: Institute’s financial statements: Members noted that the final budget of the Institute for the financial year 2016 was EUR 7 628 000, representing a decrease of 3.15 % compared to 2015. Budget and financial management: budget monitoring efforts in the financial year 2016 resulted in a high budget implementation rate of 98.42 %, indicating that commitments were made in a timely manner and representing a slight decrease of 0.13 % compared to 2015. Commitment and carry-overs: the level of committed appropriations carried over remained high for operational expenditure at EUR 1.7 million, i.e. 51 % (compared to EUR 2.2 million in 2015, i.e. 60 %), mainly in relation to studies going beyond the year end. The Institute will carry out a feasibility analysis as to whether it will take a future decision on introducing differentiated appropriations. Carry-overs are often justified and do not necessarily indicate weaknesses in budget planning and implementation. Members also made a series of observations regarding the prevention and management of conflicts of interests, procurement and staff policy and internal audits and controls. They regretted that, having regard to the number of all posts occupied on 31 December 2016, the gender balance ratio was 72 % female to 28 % male. They noted furthermore the gender imbalance in the management board, with a ratio of 80 % to 20 % and called on the Institute to aim for a more gender-balanced staff composition. Members noted with satisfaction that the Institute worked closely in 2016 with its sister agencies, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). It discussed synergies and presented its work to other agencies such as the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). Members highlighted, as an example of synergies, the Institute’s participation in the Fundamental Rights Forum organised by the FRA, which provided an opportunity to reach out to other important policy stakeholders. Following an external evaluation in 2016, several recommendations were made to improve the Institute’s operations, for instance by setting clearer priorities, better targeting its outputs, developing synergies with relevant external actors and also by strengthening the role of its management board and clarifying the role of the Experts’ Forum.

• 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

    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 Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). 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 Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), 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 EIGE. EIGE: the Institute, which is located in Vilnius (LT), was established by Regulation (EC) No 1922/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council. It works to provide evidence, facts and recommendations to address gender inequalities and strengthen the inclusion of a gendered perspective in EU policy making. Main challenges in 2016: 2016 was a demanding year for EIGE as it was requested by key stakeholders to take on additional requests. EIGE’s management has also adopted new working methods to comply with the revised administrative processes proposed for the EU’s decentralised Agencies by the Secretariat General of the European Commission. The EIGE’s Management Board considers that in 2016, the sixth full operational year following EIGE’s administrative and financial independence, the Institute has successfully developed its administrative, financial and operational framework and that EIGE carried out its tasks effectively within the frame of its mandate as specified in the Founding Regulation and its annual work programme. As regards the accounts, the Management Board noted a reasonably high execution of the budget with commitment appropriations up to 98.42 % in 2016 (compared to 88 % in 2011 but slightly below 98.55 % of that of 2015), while payment appropriations in 2016 were 72.83 % (improvement of 5 percentage points compared with 67.64% in 2015). Commitment appropriations: available: EUR 8 million; made: EUR 8 million. Payment appropriations: available: EUR 10 million; paid: EUR 8 million. For further details on expenditure, please refer to EIGE’s consolidated annual activity report.

  • 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: A8-0087/2018
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T8-0147/2018

Amendments

Dossier

20

2017/2170(DEC) 2017/12/11 FEMM 9 amendments... Amendment 1 # Linnéa ENGSTRÖM Draft opinion Recital A a (new) Aa. whereas gender equality is one of the values on which the Union is founded and the Union is committed to promote gender mainstreaming in all of its actions as enshrined in Article 8 TFEU; Amendment 2 # Linnéa ENGSTRÖM Draft opinion Recital A b (new) Ab. whereas gender budgeting is part of the gender mainstreaming strategy; Amendment 3 # Mylène TROSZCZYNSKI Draft opinion Paragraph 1 1. Recalls that the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) was established in order to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality between men and women, including gender mainstreaming in allthe most relevant Union policies and the resulting national policies, the fight against discrimination based on sex, and raising Union citizens’ awareness of gender equality; points out that the EIGE sometimes falls short of its mission, which is to conduct studies on equality between men and women, by proposing analyses based on gender and gender equality concepts; points out that gender equality is different from equality between men and women in that it is based on extremely subjective social and societal criteria, which are sometimes built on assessments that are more ideological than realistic; Amendment 4 # Viorica DĂNCILĂ Draft opinion Paragraph 1 1. Recalls that the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) was established in order to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality, including gender mainstreaming in all relevant Union policies and the resulting national policies, the fight against discrimination based on sex, and raising Union citizens’ awareness of gender equality, and welcomes the prioritising of the work on several areas with outputs of high quality and high visibility, without losing focus on gender mainstreaming; Amendment 5 # Urszula KRUPA Draft opinion Paragraph 1 1. Recalls that the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) was established in order to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality in the EU, including gender mainstreaming in all relevant Union policies and the resulting national policies, the fight against discrimination based on sex, and raising Union citizens’ awareness of gender equality; Amendment 6 # Linnéa ENGSTRÖM Draft opinion Paragraph 1 1. Recalls that the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) was established in order to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality, including gender mainstreaming in all relevant Union policies and the resulting national policies, the fight against discrimination based on sexgender, and raising Union citizens’ awareness of gender equality; Amendment 7 # Viorica DĂNCILĂ Draft opinion Paragraph 2 2. Welcomes the ongoing cooperation between the EIGE and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and welcomes the EIGE’s contribution to the ongoing efforts of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality; calls for further interaction between the legislative and non-legislative priorities of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and the EIGE’s research, also taking into account the Gender Equality Index developed by the EIGE; Amendment 8 # Urszula KRUPA Draft opinion Paragraph 2 Women’s Rights and Gender Equality; calls for further interaction between the legislative and non-legislative priorities of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and the EIGE’s research, also taking into account the Gender Equality Index developed by the EIGE; Amendment 9 # Mylène TROSZCZYNSKI Draft opinion Paragraph 6 6. Is of the opinion, on the basis of the data available now, that discharge cannot be granted to the Director of the EIGE in respect of the implementation of its budget for the financial year 2016. Takes the view, weighing up the cost of the Institution and the extent to which it actually helps to protect women and equality between men and women, that it is disproportionately expensive and that the Member States cannot foot the bill. source: 615.413 2018/03/02 CONT 11 amendments... Amendment 1 # Bart STAES Proposal for a decision 1 Paragraph 1 1. Grants the Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality discharge in respect of the implementation of the Institute’s budget for the financial year 2016 / Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality discharge in respect of the implementation of the Institute’s budget for the financial year 2016; Amendment 10 # Benedek JÁVOR, Bart STAES Motion for a resolution Paragraph 14 a (new) 14 a. Expresses the need to establish an independent disclosure, advice and referral body with sufficient budgetary resources, in order to help whistle-blowers use the right channels to disclose their information on possible irregularities affecting the financial interests of the Union, while protecting their confidentiality and offering needed support and advice; Amendment 11 # Petri SARVAMAA Motion for a resolution Subheading 6 Performance-based budgetingMain achievements Amendment 2 # Ryszard CZARNECKI, Notis MARIAS, Raffaele FITTO, Beata GOSIEWSKA, Richard SULÍK Proposal for a decision 1 Paragraph 1 1. Grants the Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality discharge in respect of the implementation of the Institute’s budget for the financial year 2016 / Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality discharge in respect of the implementation of the Institute’s budget for the financial year 2016; Amendment 3 # Bart STAES Proposal for a decision 2 Paragraph 1 1. Approves the closure of the accounts of the European Institute for Gender Equality for the financial year 2016 / Postpones the closure of the accounts of the European Institute for Gender Equality for the financial year 2016; Amendment 4 # Barbara KAPPEL Motion for a resolution Paragraph 3 a (new) 3 a. calls on the Institute to keep the volume to be carried over to the next year as low as possible; Amendment 5 # Luke Ming FLANAGAN Motion for a resolution Paragraph 4 4. Points out that, according to the Court’s report, the Institute launched an open call for tender for a framework contract on the maintenance and update of its gender statistics tools and resources for a maximum amount of EUR 1 600 000 in 2016; highlights moreover that the call was split into two lots without indicating the respective amounts per lot; highlights that, following a question from one tenderer, the Institute clarified on its website that the maximum amount per lot was estimated at EUR 800 000; observes from the Institute’s reply that it was an administrative error due to which the amount specified was not amended accordingly and that it had no budget implication; notes furthermore, with regret, that, according to the Court’s report, price competition in the call for tender was based on daily rates only and not also on the time needed to complete the tasks, which did not allow the Institute to identify and choose the most economically advantageous offers and did not ensure the best value for money; notes from the Institute’s reply that it has amended the relevant templates of technical specifications and will mitigate the risk by putting a maximum number of working days in future requests for specific services; Amendment 6 # Petri SARVAMAA Motion for a resolution Paragraph 6 6. Regrets that, having regard to the number of all posts occupied on 31 December 2016, gender balance has not been achieved since the ratio is 72 % female to 28 % maleratio was 72 % female to 28 % male; notes furthermore the gender imbalance in the Management Board, with a ratio of 80 % and 20 %; calls on the Institute to aim for a more gender-balanced staff composition; Amendment 7 # Luke Ming FLANAGAN Motion for a resolution Paragraph 6 6. Regrets that, especially in regard to an Agency with the words 'Gender Equality' in its title, having regard to the number of all posts occupied on 31 December 2016, gender balance has not been achieved since the ratio is 72 % female to 28 % male, with a ratio imbalance of more than two to one - 72 % female to 28 % male; calls for the Agency to address and redress this imbalance as a matter of urgency; Amendment 8 # Luke Ming FLANAGAN Motion for a resolution Paragraph 8 8. Stresses that work-life balance should be part of the Institute’s staff policy; stresses that the budget spent on well-being activities amounted to EUR 36 437, corresponding to 2,25 days per staff; observes that the average number of sick days per staff in 2016 was 2,17 days in the case of those not justified by a medical certificate and 8,23 days in the case of those supported by a medical certificate, which combined is a total of 10,4 days per staff, or in excess of two weeks; calls on the Agency to examine the reasons behind those numbers with a view especially to establishing whether workplace stress is a factor; Amendment 9 # Barbara KAPPEL Motion for a resolution Paragraph 11 a (new) 11 a. Asks the Institute to inform the discharge authority on alleged and confirmed infringements, how it has dealt with these infringements, and how it will avoid them in the future; source: 618.248

History

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