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2013 discharge: European Union's Judicial Cooperation Unit (Eurojust)

2014/2103(DEC)

The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Ryszard CZARNECKI (ECR, PL) on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of Eurojust for the financial year 2013.

It called on the European Parliament to grant the Administrative Director of Eurojust discharge in respect of the implementation of Eurojust’s budget for the financial year 2013.

Noting that the Court of Auditors stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the annual accounts of the Agency for the financial year 2013 are reliable, and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular, Members called on the Parliament to approve the closure of Eurojust’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.

  • Eurojust’s financial statements: the final budget of Eurojustfor the financial year 2013 was EUR 33 828 256 of which the Union's contribution amounted to EUR 32 358 660, representing a decrease of 1.85% compared to 2012.
  • Commitments and carry-overs: Members noted that the level of committed appropriations for the different titles varied between 99% and 98% of total appropriations, indicating that legal commitments were made in a timely manner. They noted that the level of committed appropriations carried over was high for Operational expenditure at EUR 2 341 825 or 32%. They acknowledged that the high level is mainly explained by the handover of internal software management to a new service provider at the year-end.

Members also made a series of observations on transfers, procurement procedures, recruitment, prevention and management of conflicts of interest as well as internal audits.

They called on Eurojust to urgently adopt its revised arrangements for the prevention and management of conflicts of interests, to inform the discharge authority and to make public the concrete results until the end of October 2015 as well as the publication of the declarations of interests filled in by its staff and experts until the end of October 2015.

Lastly, Members noted that there is an ongoing issue regarding the overlap of responsibilities between the Administrative Director and the College of Eurojust called for the resolution of this issues as a matter of urgency.