2012 discharge: European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA)
PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) 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 Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA).
In the Court’s opinion, the European Fisheries Control 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 9.22 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: the Court notes that the high level of committed appropriations carried over to 2013 was caused, to a large extent, by events beyond the Agency’s control, such as the late invoicing of the 2012 office rental costs by the Spanish authorities. On operational expenditure, an important reason for the high level of carry-overs was the considerable workload faced by the Agency as a result of the large number of IT projects that were either launched or ongoing during 2012. This workload had an impact on the timeliness of procurement procedures in the case of two IT projects launched in 2012.
The Agency’s reply:
- carry-overs: the Agency indicates careful consideration will be given to each new project with a view to optimising its lifecycle, in order to avoid carryover of significant amounts.
Lastly, the Court of Auditors’ report contains a summary of the Agency’s activities in 2012. This is focused on implementation of the Joint Deployment Plan cod fishery in the North Sea,
Skagerrak, Kattegat and the Eastern Channel and Western Waters and JDP cod and salmon fisheries in the Baltic Sea. The Agency also carried out:
- mapping study on information systems supporting fisheries controls in the EU ;
- operation, maintenance, enhancement and development of ICT monitoring capabilities: Vessel Monitoring System (VMS), Electronic Reporting System (ERS), Fishnet ;
- support activities to fight Illegal unreported and unregulated fisheries.