The European Parliament decided to grant discharge to the Director of the Translation Centre for the bodies of the European Union (CdT) for the financial year 2021 and to approve the closure of the accounts for that year.

Noting that the Court of Auditors stated that it had obtained reasonable assurance that the Centre's annual accounts for the financial year 2021 were reliable and that the underlying transactions were legal and regular, Parliament adopted, by 585 votes to 39 with 6 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of recommendations which form an integral part of the discharge decision and which complement the general recommendations set out in the resolution on the performance, financial management and control of European Union agencies.

Centre’s financial statements

The final budget of the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union for 2021 was EUR 53 031 743, representing an increase of 13.30 % compared to 2020.

Budgetary and financial management

The budget monitoring efforts during the financial year 2021 resulted in a budget implementation rate of current year commitment appropriations of 83.54 %, representing a decrease of 6.45 % compared to 2020. Payment appropriations execution rate was 76.51 %, representing a decrease of 6.86 % compared to 2020. For 2021, due to exceptional events, the Centre did not apply the mechanism for automatic reimbursement of the budget surplus (EUR 1.1 million) to clients. That amount has been carried over to 2022.

Other observations

Parliament made a number of observations concerning performance, staff, procurement and internal controls.

In particular, it noted that:

- the Centre is encouraged to continue monitoring its performance on both levels, direct output of activities and strategic performance;

- the Centre continues to refine the way the security of its information systems is evaluated;

- with 367 264 pages, the number of pages of documents translated, modified, edited and revised increased by 9.7 % compared to 2020 (322 443 pages);

- the first results of the pilot exercise launched in 2021 aiming to analyse the agencies’ existing multilingual practices with a view to setting up a ‘multilingualism toolbox’ and creating common guidelines for agencies’ language policies was anticipated;

- the Centre implemented new services such as the light post-editing service, the Paste‘n’Go service for faster translation of short texts and the customised machine translation engines in several areas;

- on 31 December 2021, the establishment plan was 95.33 % implemented, with 47 officials and 137 temporary agents appointed out of 51 officials and 142 temporary agents authorised under the Union budget. Gender and geographical balance should be improved;

- weaknesses were witnessed in the Centre’s public procurement procedures in 2021, whereby contracts were signed using a negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contact notice;

- the Centre fully adopted e-procurement procedures in 2021;

- internal control mechanisms should be strengthened, including by setting up an internal anticorruption mechanism;

- systematic updated cybersecurity-related training programmes should be offered to all of its staff, including management;

- in 2021, the Centre reduced its office space by 33 % following the signature of a new lease contract, which should lead to a reduction in the Centre’s electricity consumption and in the amount of energy used for heating;

- greater transparency and public accountability should be ensured by better-utilising media and social media channels.