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2006 discharge: EC general budget, European Data Protection Supervisor

2007/2044(DEC)

PURPOSE: to present the final annual accounts of the European Communities for the financial year 2006 – Other institutions: section VIII-B – European Data-Protection Supervisor (EDPS).

CONTENT: this document establishes the amount of expenditure and the balance sheet of the European Data-Protection Supervisor for the financial year 2006 and presents an analysis of its financial management.

The figures: the following figures are taken from the provisional annual accounts for the financial year 2006 for the European Data-Protection Supervisor. They may be subject to amendment after consolidation:

  • Authorised appropriations for 2006: EUR 4 138 378;
  • Committed appropriations amount to: EUR 3 861 774.58, a utilisation rate of 93.32%;
  • Paid appropriations amount to: EUR 2 627 302.54.

Main axes of expenditure for 2006: the implementation of the EDPS budget is in line with the two previous budgets, namely further establishment of the Institution. The establishment of the EDPS was therefore carried out on the basis of 2004 and 2005 with a view to consolidating the good start made by the Institution. In 2006, the EDPS had access to additional resources both in terms of the budget (an increase from EUR 2.8 million in 2005 to EUR 4.1 million in 2006) and personnel (an increase from 19 to 24 people).

2006 was also the first year in which the EDPS established its own provisional budget (set in March 2005 at EUR 3 583 833), followed by an amending budget (due to additional translation costs) setting the total budget for the EDPS at EUR 4 138 378.

The budgetary year was also marked by:

  • The consolidation of administrative cooperation: this refers to cooperation with the relevant services of the Parliament, the Commission and the Council in areas where duplication of jobs can be avoided. In December 2006, the agreement concluded with the institutions was extended for a further 3 year period (at the end of this 3-year period the agreement can be extended again). As a reminder, this agreement enables the EDPS to rely on the expertise of the other institutions in areas of budgetary and technical assistance, among others, and creates large economies of scale (for example, cooperation with the European Parliament creates savings in terms of information technology, fitting out of the occupied areas, the security of buildings, the post, telephone services and supplies…; as for cooperation with the Council, this refers mainly to translation services). Note that cooperation with the Commission is subject to guidelines, in order to set the terms for assistance provided by the Commission regarding the budget and personnel. On this note, the report indicates that certain difficulties were identified during the year in terms of the implementation of certain tasks, due to the shared assistance provided by the different institutions; these difficulties were mostly related to access to financial systems software and the management of human resources used in the other institutions. In this context, the EDPS independently took over some of the tasks for which it had received assistance in the beginning;
  • Recruitment: as a new institution, the EDPS is still in its development phase. The EDPS therefore chose to limit the increase in the number of tasks and staff so that there would be a controlled progression of tasks to be dealt with and of newly integrated personnel. That is why the EDPS created 5 additional posts in 2006.

The other highlights of the implementation of the EDPS budget may be summarised as follows:

  • Title I: (Expenditure relating to persons working with the Institution): this budgetary Title is mainly marked by the low rate of implementation of appropriations entered into chapter 17 “entertainment and representation expenses”, which only amounted to 53%. The other main chapters and budget items were implemented at almost 100%;
  • Title II: (Buildings, equipment and miscellaneous operating expenditure): there was no significant impact on this budgetary Title in 2006.