2016 discharge: Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking - BBI Joint Undertaking

PURPOSE: to grant discharge to the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2016.

NON-LEGISLATIVE ACT: Decision (EU) 2018/1436 of the European Parliament on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2016.

CONTENT: the European Parliament decided to grant discharge to the Executive Director of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking for the implementation of the latters budget for the financial year 2016.

This decision is accompanied by a resolution of the European Parliament containing the observations which form an integral part of the discharge decision in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2016 (please refer to the summary dated 18.4.2018).

In this resolution, Parliament expressed serious concern about the fact that out of the EUR 975 million of contributions to be made by the industry members to the operational activities and administrative costs of the Joint Undertaking, industry members had reported in-kind contributions of only EUR 15.4 million for operational activities, and the governing board had validated cash contributions by the members to the Joint Undertaking’s administrative costs of EUR 3 million. It regretted the low level of in-kind contributions which stems from the fact that most Joint Undertaking’s projects were only in their preliminary stages in 2016.

Parliament expressed satisfaction of the fact that the programme office achieved all the priority objectives set in the Annual Work Programme 2016 for the internal control systems. It also welcomed the fact that the human resources function continued to strengthen the legal framework paying particular attention to the application of the implementing rules of the Commission to the Joint Undertaking.