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2010 discharge: European Training Foundation (ETF)

2011/2222(DEC)

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

European Training Foundation (ETF), together with the Foundation’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 Training Foundation (ETF).

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

The report confirms that the Foundation’s 2010 budget amounted to EUR 19.3 million, and that the number of staff employed by the Foundation at the end of the year was 128.

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

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

  • technical assistance provided by the Foundation: (i) improving human capital development (HCD) in 29 partner countries; (ii) supporting the EU policies and projects, providing policy analyses, disseminating and exchanging information and (iii) expertise in human capital development.
  • Turin Process: in 2010 the Foundation successfully completed a first year of the Turin Process (Vocational Education Training policy assessments in 24 partner countries) contributing to developing strategic policies, promoting development best practices, and facilitating coordination and harmonisation, as well as in the external dimension of internal European Union Policies ;
  • working on main functions as follows: supporting the Union's policies and project cycle of external relations instruments for the partner countries, capacity building of partner countries, policy analysis and dissemination and networking;
  • response to direct requests from the European Commission : 105 requests, 62% of which were addressed to IPA countries, 30% concerned ENPI and 7% involved DCI.