2014 discharge: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)

The European Parliament decided to grant discharge to the Executive Director of the European Centre for disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in respect of the implementation of its budget for the financial year 2014. The vote on the decision on discharge covers the closure of the accounts (in accordance with Annex V, Article 5 (1)(a) to Parliament’s Rules of Procedure.

Noting that the Court of Auditors has stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the Centre’s annual accounts for the financial year 2014 are reliable and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular, Parliament adopted by 515 votes to 90 with 30 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of recommendations, which form an integral part of the decision on discharge and which add to the general recommendations set out in the resolution on performance, financial management and control of EU agencies:

• Centre’s financial statements: Parliament noted that the final budget of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for the financial year 2014 was EUR 60 486 000, representing an increase of 3.72 % compared to 2013.
• Budget and financial management: Parliament noted that the budget monitoring efforts during the financial year 2014 resulted in a high budget implementation rate of 98.77 %, representing an increase of 5.81 % compared to the previous year.

Parliament also made a series of observations regarding commitments and carryovers, contract award, recruitment and internal audit and control procedures.

It noted that the development and launch of the Surveillance Atlas of Infectious Diseases on the Centre’s web portal publishes Union level data together with some international data. It also acknowledged that all reports edited and published by the Centre were made available as downloadable documents on the Centre’s web portal.

It recalled that, as an EU Agency, the Centre has a budget denominated in euro, but has a lot of expenses in another currency (Swedish crown (SEK)) as it is based in a non-Eurozone country. It noted that in early 2014, the Centre had to implement a revised EUR to SEK exchange rate and adjust upwards the cost in EUR of expenses in SEK going back to 2011, leading to several revisions of its work programme. Parliament welcomed that, despite this, by the end of the year 2014, the Centre had delivered nearly 85 % of the deliverables planned in its work programme for 2014, as well as delivering 117 emergency outputs on the major disease control emergency of 2014, namely, the unprecedented Ebola epidemic that emerged in West Africa and subsequently evolved into a global concern.

Lastly, Parliament took note that, during the course of the Ebola emergency, well over 100 staff of the Centre worked on supporting the Union-level response to Ebola, and welcomed the Centre's flexibility, service orientation and commitment to scientific excellence that were demonstrated on this occasion