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2011 discharge: Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union (CdT)

2012/2189(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 2011, 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 2011 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 2011 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.

The report confirms that the Centre’s 2011 budget amounted to EUR 51.3 million. The number of staff employed by the Centre at the end of the year was 219.

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:

Court’s observations:

  • budget decrease: the Court notes that this reduction mainly results from a 15% decrease in revenues, reflecting the Centre’s new pricing policy which aims to align prices of products with their costs;
  • budget surplus: continuing the trend from last year, the accumulated budget surplus decreased from EUR 9.2 million in 2010 to EUR 3 million in 2011. This reduction is the net effect of the 2011 budget surplus and allocations to reserves for pricing stability and for exceptional investments.

Centre’s replies: the Centre has taken note of the Court’s report.

Lastly, the Court of Auditors’ report contains a summary of the Centre’s activities in 2011. This is focused on the Centre’s translation activities:

  • number of pages translated: 712 813 pages compared to 819 598 pages in 2010;
  • number of pages by language: official EU languages: 704 613 pages; other languages: 8 200 page;
  • number of pages by client: bodies: 676 925 pages; institutions: 3 888;
  • number of pages translated by free lancers: 436 445 pages.