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2010 discharge: European Chemicals Agency (ECHA)

2011/2235(DEC)

PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the

European Chemicals Agency, together with the Agency’s reply.

CONTENT: in accordance with the tasks conferred on the Court of Auditors by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Court presents to the European Parliament and to the Council, in the context of the discharge procedure, a Statement of Assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts of each institution, body or agency of the EU, and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them, on the basis of an independent external audit.

This audit concerned, amongst others, the annual accounts of the European Chemicals Agency (ECA).

In the Court’s opinion, the Agency’s Annual Accounts fairly present, in all material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2010 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation.

The Court also considers that the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Agency for the financial year ended 31 December 2010 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.

The report confirms that the Agency’s 2010 budget amounted to EUR 75 million and that the   number of staff employed by the Agency at the end of the year was 472.

The report also makes a series of observations on the budgetary and financial management of the Agency, accompanied by the latter’s response. The main observations may be summarised as follows:

The Court’s observations:

  • in 2010, the Agency became fully self-financing. There is scope for the Agency’s Financial Regulation to be revised to include a mechanism for retaining surplus own revenue to finance the Agency’s future activities.

The Agency’s reply:

  • the Agency will include a proposal for mechanism to manage surplus revenue in the upcoming review of the Framework Financial Regulation.

Lastly, the Court of Auditors’ report contains a summary of the Agency’s activities in 2010. This is focused on the following:

  • preparation for and handling of submissions under the first REACH registration deadline, including enquiries on chemicals (1 600);
  • evaluation and compliance checks;
  • 16 substances identified for inclusion in the Candidate list in the authorisation process;
  • classification and labelling: number of C&L notifications received: over 3 million for over 100 000 substances.
  • advice and assistance with 10 000 questions answered by helpdesk ;
  • further development of REACH-IT and other scientific IT systems;
  • scientific and Practical Advice for the further development of legislation
  • communication, with 2.5 million website visits from 200 countries.
  • relations with EU Institutions and International Cooperation including with Canada and with the US Environmental Protection Agency.