2010 discharge: European Environment Agency (EEA)

PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the European Environment 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 Environment Agency (EEA).

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 50.6 million and that the   number of staff employed by the Agency at the end of the year was 125.

It should be noted that the report makes no observations on the budgetary and financial management of the Agency.

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

• organising and taking part in conferences on key environmental topics for the EU (e.g. biodiversity);
• contributing to Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES);
• the development of version 3 of the Eye on Earth platform;
• contributing to the State of the Environment report (SOER) 2010.