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2012 discharge: European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)

2013/2219(DEC)

The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI) in which it recommended the European Parliament to grant discharge to the Executive Director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in respect of the implementation of the Agency's budget for the financial year 2012.

Noting that the Court of Auditors stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the annual accounts of the Agency for the financial year 2012 are reliable, and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular, Members approved the closure of the Agency’s accounts. They made, however, a number of recommendations that needed 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.

  • Budget and financial management: Members noted that the overall level of appropriations committed was 95%. They with concern that carry-overs of committed appropriations were high (46%) although this is partly justified by the multiannual nature of the Agency’s operations. Nevertheless, they considered that such a high level is at odds with the budgetary principle of annuality.
  • Prevention and management of conflicts of interests and transparency: Members welcomed the Agency's adoption of the "cooling off period" of non-assignment for a year, so that anyone new to the organisation is not allocated work on files they had directly worked on in the previous five years.  They noted that following the recommendation of the discharge authority, the Agency will include information and statistics on the management of conflicts of interests in its 2013 annual activity report.

Members also made a series of observations on transfers, procurement and recruitment procedures as well as comments on internal controls.