2015 discharge: EU general budget, European Parliament

Based on the observations contained in the report by the Court of Auditors, the Council called on the European Parliament to grant discharge to all of the EU institutions in respect of the implementation of their respective budgets for the financial year 2015.

The Council welcomed that the administrative and related expenditure of the EU institutions remained free from material error with an estimated level of error of 0.6 %, which is well below the materiality threshold. It noted with satisfaction that no serious weaknesses were identified by the Court in the supervisory and control systems and in the examined annual activity reports.

The Council took note of a limited number of errors detected by the Court, notably in the recruitment and procurement procedures and in the management of staff allowances.

The Council regretted the Court's observation related to the management of funds within the European Parliament, particularly to the control of allocations for political groups. It underlined that respect to the principle of transparency is instrumental to the Union's accountability towards its citizens. It therefore underlined the importance of strengthening the control framework and providing better guidance to the political groups through reinforced monitoring of the application of the rules of the Financial Regulation.