Activites

• 2018/04/18 Debate in plenary scheduled
• 2018/03/26 Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading
  • A8-0095/2018 summary

    The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Brian HAYES (EPP, IE) on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy for the financial year 2016. The committee called on the European Parliament to grant the Director of the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy discharge in respect of the implementation of the Joint Undertaking’s budget for the financial year 2016. 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 2016, 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 in November 2016, the Council of ITER Organisation (the “ITER Council”) approved a new ITER project baseline for the scope, schedule and the costs of the project. They noted, moreover, that the overall project schedule for operations ´First Plasma ´ and ´Deuterium-Tritium´ was approved. Following the approval of the new ITER project baseline, the Joint Undertaking set the new timetable and recalculated the related cost at completion of the Joint Undertaking’s contribution to the project construction phase. Members expressed ongoing concern that the estimated completion date for the whole construction phase is currently planned with a delay of about 15 years compared to the original baseline. The new schedule endorsed by the ITER Council set out a four-stage approach, making December 2025 the deadline for achieving the first strategic milestone of the project construction phase (‘First Plasma’) and December 2035 the estimated completion date for the whole construction phase. Members noted the Court’s report finding that the results, which were presented to the Joint Undertaking’s Governing Board in December 2016, indicated an expected additional funding requirement to that already committed of EUR 5.4 billion for the construction phase after 2020, which represents an increase of 82 % in relation to the approved EUR 6.6 billion budget. Additional funding required to complete the ITER project must involve future Multiannual Financial Framework commitments. The report stressed that on 29 March 2017, the United Kingdom notified the European Council of its decision to withdraw from the EU and Euratom. An agreement setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal is being negotiated. However, the United Kingdom has expressed its interest in further participating in EU fusion energy activities. Budget and financial management: the final 2016 budget available for implementation included commitment appropriations of EUR 488 000 000 and payment appropriations of EUR 724 510 000. The utilisation rates for commitment and payment appropriations were 99.8 % and 98 % respectively. The full implementation of the 2016 budget made the level of cancelled appropriations very low for 2016. Out of EUR 488 000 000 available for commitment appropriations, almost 100 % was implemented through direct individual commitments. Other observations: the report also contained a series of observations on the prevention and management of conflicts of interests, personal selection and recruitment, internal control measures, operational procurements and grants. The report also noted in particular: that the governing board adopted an anti-fraud strategy and corresponding action plan, of which most of the actions were implemented in 2016; 40 operational procurement procedures were launched and 52 procurement contracts were signed; concern about the worrying increase in the timeframe to contract for procurements for both amounts above and below the EUR 1 000 000 threshold.

• 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 Joint Undertaking Fusion for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy - Fusion for Energy Joint Undertaking (F4E) 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 ITER-F4E Joint Undertaking, 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 ITER and Fusion for Energy. ITER and Fusion for Energy Joint Undertaking (F4E): Fusion for Energy (F4E) is a Joint Undertaking created under the Euratom Treaty by Council Decision 2007/198/Euratom. F4E was established for a period of 35 years from 19 April 2007 and its seat is located in Barcelona, Spain. ITER was created to manage and to encourage the exploitation of the ITER facilities, to promote public understanding and acceptance of fusion energy, and to undertake any other activities that are necessary to achieve its purpose. ITER involves the EU, China, India, Russia, South Korea, Japan and the USA. Main changes in 2016: during the period covered by this report there have been some important changes at the ITER Organization and F4E: a new Director, Johannes Schwemmer, took up his duties on 1 January 2016; the F4E Director took over the Action Plan prepared and used by the Acting Director to implement the necessary actions in F4E. He closely collaborated with the ITER Organization Director General to carry out further improvements to the project; he also modified the existing F4E structure and a new Organization Breakdown Structure was effective as of 1 October 2016; the close collaboration with the ITER Organization led to the approval of the updated overall project schedule (in November 2016 at the ITER Council-19). As for the overall ITER project cost and the associated estimate of resources for the overall period 2016-2035, it was approved “ad referendum” (i.e. subject to domestic processes of obtaining approval including approval of budgetary authorities and/or parliament if required). A staged approach is now foreseen for the project with first plasma in December 2025. These decisions were in line with the conclusions from the independent review of the Updated ITER Long Term Schedule and with the conclusions of the work carried out by F4E as explained below. As regards the accounts: Commitment appropriations: available: EUR 764 million; made: EUR 763 million. Payment appropriations: available: EUR 730 million; paid: EUR 716 million. Please also refer to the final accounts of ITER-F4E.

  • 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: A8-0095/2018

History

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