Framework Financial Regulation for the Community bodies referred to in Article 185 Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002

The Committee on Budgets adopted a report drafted by Ingeborg GRÄSSLE (EPP-ED, DE), and amended, in the framework of the consultation procedure, the draft Commission regulation (EC, Euratom) amending Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002 on the framework Financial Regulation for the bodies referred to in Article 185 of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities.

The main amendments are as follows:

-in consideration of the difference in deadlines between the European Parliament's discharge decision in respect of the general budget, which is 15 May of year n+2, and its discharge decision in respect of the agencies, which is 30 April of year n+2, all actors involved should try to avoid difficulties in practice and strive for a harmonisation of the legal bases in the future;

-'Community body' shall mean any body referred to in Article 185(1) of the general Financial Regulation. The Committee stated that the general budgetary and financial rules should apply to all bodies which generate costs charged to the budget, be it through direct grants, through the use of EU staff, through pensions of agencies' staff charged to the budget or other costs;

-the appropriations available at 31 December arising from the assigned revenue referred to in Article 19 shall be carried over automatically. The appropriations available corresponding to assigned revenue carried over must be used first;

-acceptance of donations which may involve any financial charge shall be subject to the prior authorisation of the management board, which shall take a decision within two months of the date on which the request is submitted to it. If the management board fails to take a decision within that period, the donation shall be deemed accepted;

-in order to be able to monitor any substantial changes in the shares of an agency's budget allocated for administrative and operational expenditure, the budgetary authority shall be informed of all transfers between titles exceeding a 10%- threshold;

- following a recommendation of the European Court of Auditors (Opinion 4/2007), the text now specifies the content of the summary of the budget and amending budgets and clarifies the duty of publication, so as to enable the budgetary authority to gain a genuine overview of the development of the agency’s budget;

-it specifies also  the information which the establishment plan is to contain, so as to enable the budgetary authority to gain a genuine overview of the development of the agency’s staff budget;

-‘reasons for confidentiality’ are allowed, but they must not lead to evasion of

the fundamental duty of publication;

-the provisions regarding the accountability of the authorising officer are improved;

-the text now aims to help very small agencies in giving them the possibility to share an internal audit function with one or several other agencies;

-the budgetary authority should be enabled to monitor the use of external experts by the agencies;

-it aligns responsibility for approval of the final accounts with the general Financial Regulation where they are approved by "the Commission", and the Financial Regulation for executive agencies, where they are approved by "the management board";

-the management board should be aware of Parliament observations;

-two years before the expiry of a financial perspective or multi-annual financial framework, the Commission shall provide the European Parliament and the Council

with an opinion concerning the functioning and the necessity of each agency.