The European Parliament decided to grant the Executive Director of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH 2) Joint Undertaking discharge in respect of the implementation of the joint undertaking’s budget for the financial year 2018 and to approve the closure of the joint undertaking’s accounts.

Noting that the Court of Auditors considered that the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2018 accurately reflected the financial position of the Joint Undertaking as at 31 December 2018, as well as the results of its operations, Parliament adopted by 629 votes to 58, with 6 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of observations which form an integral part of the discharge decision.

General

Parliament noted that the Union contribution to FCH2 is EUR 318 800 000 from Horizon 2020 and that the contribution of resources by members from the Industry and Research Groupings amount to EUR 649 400 000 comprising EUR 1 800 000 of in-kind contributions in the Horizon 2020 projects funded by FCH2, EUR 7 700 000 of in-kind contributions to additional activities and EUR 3 600 000 of cash contributions to administrative costs.

Budget and financial management

FCH2´s final budget for the financial year 2018 included commitment appropriations of EUR 85 504 157 and payment appropriations of EUR 126 526 307. The overall 2018 budget execution of commitment and payment appropriations reached 93 % and 83 % respectively.

Other observations

The resolution also contained a series of observations on performance, internal control systems and audits. It noted in particular that:

- all calls for proposals were published and closed according to the respective work plans and with the annual work programme 2018, included 20 topics;

- on the transport side, the deployment of fuel cells electric buses can be considered to be world-wide state of the art, having progressed significantly throughout FCH2 projects;

- there is gender balance among staff (51 % men and 49 % women);

- in 2018 FCH2 finalised the implementation of all action plans addressing the recommendations of the internal audit service (IAS) audits on the performance management undertaken by the IAS in 2016, including a recommendation on the revision of the multiannual work programme and of the strategic and operational objectives;

- in December 2018 FCH2 submitted all action plans addressing the recommendations of the 2017 audit report to the IAS for a review;

- by the end of 2018 there were two open audits launched in 2017 and FCH2 did not finalise theses audits due to ongoing discussions with beneficiaries that also required coordination with other DG Research and Innovation services to ensure coherent audit results across different stakeholders.