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2015 discharge: European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy - Fusion for Energy Joint Undertaking (F4E)

2016/2194(DEC)

The European Parliament decided to grant discharge to the Director of the Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2015.

Based on the statement of assurance provided by the Court of Auditors concerning the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions, it decided to approve the closure of the accounts of the Joint Undertaking for the same financial year.

Noting that the Court of Auditors has stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the Joint Undertaking’s annual accounts for the financial year 2015 are reliable and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular, Parliament adopted by 431 votes to 147 with 37 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of recommendations which form an integral part of the decision on discharge.

General: Members expressed concern that the Court’s report once again emphasised that the complexity of ITER activities puts the amount of the Joint Undertaking’s contribution to the construction phase of the ITER project at significant risk of increasing. They recognised that significant progress across a range of areas impacting on the whole management structure of the project has been achieved. Highlighting  the need to maintain the budget cap of EUR 6.6 billion until 2020, Parliament stressed that the main challenge for the ITER project is to make sure that the realistic schedule and budgeting are kept and that any potential deviation or problem is detected at the earliest stage possible. It welcomed the efforts taken by the Joint Undertaking to provide more global and realistic cost estimates.

The Commission is invited to present, before July 2017, a communication on ITER project, which is essential for ensuring transparency of the whole project and setting out the way forward.

Budget and financial management: the final 2015 budget available for implementation included commitment appropriations of EUR 467 901 000 and payment appropriations of EUR 586 080 000. Members noted the following:

  • the utilisation rates for commitment and payment appropriations were 100 % and 99 % respectively. The level of cancelled appropriations was low for 2015;
  • out of the EUR 467 900 000 available for commitment appropriations, 52 % was implemented through direct individual commitments and the remaining 48 % through global commitments:

                    i.            as regards individual commitments, lower performance than originally foreseen was mainly due to a decrease in the amount of cash contribution requested by ITER Organisation, a decrease in the amount of cash contribution requested by Japan and postponements of contracts in areas such as remote handling, diagnostics and plasma engineering;

                  ii.            as for global commitments, the main domains were buildings (for amendments or options on the main buildings contracts) and a vacuum vessel (for completion of the procurement of the main vessel).

Other observations: the resolution also contained a series of observations on the prevention and management of conflicts of interests, personal selection and recruitment, internal control measures, operational procurements and grants, intellectual property rights and industrial policy.

Parliament also noted in particular:

  • the development of contract tracker tool (a portal by which to exchange documentation with suppliers), which is an important tool for monitoring of milestones and overall project progress;
  • the launch of 73 operational procurement procedures the signing of 79 procurement contracts for a value of about EUR 326 million. The average time to contract for procurements above EUR 1 million decreased from 240 days to 140 days during 2015 in comparison with 2014; efforts are needed to increase the competitiveness of its operational procurement procedures;
  • the adoption of the single intellectual property document in 2016, the Joint Undertaking formalised the use of that document by including it as an explicit step in all new processes for procurement procedures;
  • the signature of a renewed long-term lease agreement with Spain for its offices.

The Director is encouraged to continue in his effort towards optimising resources between the Joint Undertaking and the ITER Organisation.