2007 discharge: EU general budget, Section III, Commission

PURPOSE: to grant discharge to the Commission for the implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2007.

LEGISLATIVE ACTS: Decisions 2009/630/EC, Euratom and 2009/634/EC, Euratom of the European Parliament on the discharge for implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2007 and the closing of the accounts of the same budget (Section III – Commission).

CONTENT: with the present decisions, the European Parliament grants the European Commission discharge for the implementation of the general budget for 2007 and definitively closes the accounts for the year 2007.

Parliament notes the improvements in the individual parts which comprise the Statement of Assurance (DAS) compared to previous years. It regrets, however, that, for the 14th year in succession, the DAS issued by the ECA in its annual report for 2007 includes a qualified opinion on the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts. The Court notes that, in a large number of expenditure areas (agriculture and natural resources, cohesion, research, energy and transport, external aid, development and enlargement, education and citizenship), payments are still materially affected by errors, albeit to differing degrees. Moreover, Parliament notes with concern the problems surrounding recovery of irregularly disbursed Community funds and the poor quality of the data supplied on the correction mechanism applied at Member State level.

The Parliament also makes a number of other observations in a resolution annexed to the discharge decision (please refer to the summary of the opinion of 23/04/2009).

It should also be noted that the Parliament also grants discharge to the directors of the Commission’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (Decision 2009/631/EC, Euratom), the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (Decision 2009/632/EC, Euratom) and the Executive Agency for the Public Health Programme (Decision 2009/633/EC, Euratom)  for implementation of their respective budget for the financial year 2007.