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2012 discharge: European Chemicals Agency (ECHA)

2013/2233(DEC)

PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) for the year 2012, 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 (ECHA).

In the Court’s opinion, the European Chemicals Agency’s Annual Accounts fairly present, in all material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2012 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer.

The Court also considers that the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Agency for the financial year ended 31 December 2012 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.

The report confirms that the Agency’s 2012 budget amounted to EUR 98.9 million.

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:

·        budgetary management: while the rate of committed appropriations carried over was high for title III at 50 % (EUR 11.3 million), this primarily relates to the multiannual nature of significant IT development projects.

The Agency’s reply:

  • the Agency indicates it will continue to ensure justification for carry-over operations.

Lastly, the Court of Auditors’ report contains a summary of the Agency’s activities in 2012. This is focused on registration of chemical products:

  • number of dossiers processed: 9.773 ;
  • number of confidentiality requests assessment completed: 871 ;
  • number of enquiries received: 1 632 ;
  • number of decisions issued on data-sharing disputes: 1 ;
  • number of susbstances on which information made public (excluding confidential information): 7 884.