2006 discharge: Translation Centre for the bodies of the European Union CdT

Based on the observations contained in the revenue and expenditure account and the balance sheet of the European Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union for the financial year 2006, as well as on the Court of Auditor’s report and the Centre’s replies to the Court’s observations, the Council recommends that the Parliament grant the Director of the Centre discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2006.

In doing so, the Council confirms that EUR 2 million (96%) of the appropriations carried over from 2005 to 2006 (EUR 2.2 million) was used, that the appropriations carried over from 2006 to 2007 amount to EUR 2.9 million and that a total of EUR 14 million was cancelled.

Recalling that the Court of Auditors was able to obtain reasonable assurance that the Centre’s annual accounts were, in all material aspects, reliable, the Council believes that there is a certain number of observations that must be taken into consideration when providing the discharge on the implementation of the 2006 budget, particularly regarding the following points:

• Budget surpluses: the Council invites the Centre to improve the method for pricing its translations in order to avoid the increasing accumulation of budget surpluses and to rectify the permanent under utilisation of appropriations. In addition, the Council requests that the Centre fully respect the provisions of the Financial Regulation, by establishing budget commitments before making legal commitments;
• Recruitment procedure: the Council is concerned that, in terms of the recruitment procedure for translators, the Centre failed to provide written evidence of the rules applied for the evaluation of the candidates’ files. Therefore, it invites the Centre to establish written guidelines to evaluate candidates, in order to rectify this lack of transparency noted by the Court.