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2010 discharge: Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union (CdT)

2011/2219(DEC)

PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union (CdT), for the financial year 2010, together with the Centre’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 Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union (CdT).

In the Court’s opinion, the Centre’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 Centre for the financial year ended 31 December 2010 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.

The report confirms that the Centre’s 2010 budget amounted to EUR 55.9 million. The number of staff employed by the Centre at the end of the year was 225.

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

The Court’s observations:

  • the Court states that during 2010, the Centre reduced its accumulated 2009 surplus of EUR 24 million to EUR 9.2 million euro principally by transferring funds to the Union's pension scheme and by reimbursing the Centre's clients.

The Centre’s response:

  • the Centre indicates that in the framework of its new pricing policy, intending to respect the equilibrium between its revenue and its effectively incurred expenses, the Centre has proposed to the Management Board the creation of a reserve of EUR 4.3 million o for investments into e-CDT program to be realised over the years 2012-2013 and a price stability fund of EUR 4.9 million euro to compensate for the potential decrease of its revenue due to the anticipated reduction of translation requests from its major client.

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

  • number of pages translated: 819 598 pages;
  • number of pages by language: official EU languages: 813 907 pages ; other languages: 5 691 page;
  • number of pages by client: bodies: 805 529 pages; institutions: 14 069;
  • number of pages translated by free lancers: 448 160 pages.