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2012 discharge: European Police Office (Europol)

2013/2235(DEC)

The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI) on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Police Office for the financial year 2012.

Noting that the Court of Auditors stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the annual accounts of the Authority for the financial year 2012 are reliable and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular, Members approve the closure of the Office’s accounts. However, they made a number of recommendations that need to be taken into account when the discharge is granted, in addition to the general recommendations that appear in the draft resolution on performance, financial management and control of EU agencies:

·        Financing, budget and financial management: Members recall that the Office's overall budget for 2012 amounted to EUR 84.15 million. They also note that budget monitoring efforts during the financial year 2012 resulted in a budget implementation rate of 98.8 % and that the payment appropriations execution rate was 79.7 %.

·        Implementation rate of appropriations: the report observes that the Office carried over EUR1.2 million which were mostly related to the new task assigned to the Office in June 2012 of running the European Cybercrime Centre, as well as EUR 100 000 related to the introduction of a new human resources system. They regretted that commitments amounting to EUR 2 600 000 (out of EUR 15 000 000) carried over from 2011 had to be cancelled in 2012.

Members made a series of observations as regards the accounting system, procurement and recruitment procedures of this Agency. They asked that the Office communicated the results and impact its work had on the European citizens in an accessible way, mainly through its website.

Lastly, Members stressed the need to strengthen transparency and prevent conflicts of interests. They called on EUROPOL to make publicly available the Declarations of Interests of certain members.