2017 discharge: Eurojust, European Union's Judicial Cooperation Unit

PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of Eurojust for the financial year 2017, together with the Eurojust’s reply.

CONTENT: the Court of Auditors carried out the audit on the annual accounts of Eurojust.

In brief, Eurojust’s objective is to improve the coordination of cross-border investigations and prosecutions between the Member States of the European Union, and between Member States and non-Member States.

Statement of assurance and reliability of the accounts

The Court considered that:

- Eurojust’s annual accounts present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position as at 31 December 2017 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer;

- the transactions underlying the annual accounts for the year ended 31 December 2017 are legal and regular in all material respects.

The report also makes a series of observations on Eurojust’s budgetary and financial management, accompanied by the latter’s response. The main observations may be summarised as follows:

The Court’s observations

Recruitment

The Court noted that Eurojust publishes vacancy notices on its own website and in social media, but not on the website of the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO), which would increase transparency, publicity and allow citizens to identify vacancies published by the different European Institutions and agencies collectively.

Eurojust’s reply

Eurojust considers that the statement concerning the recruitment processes is correct. This approach is due to the financial constraints deriving from EPSO’s requirement of translating the vacancy notices into all 24 official EU languages.

Lastly, the Court of Auditors’ report contains a summary of the Eurojust’s key figures in 2017:

Budget

EUR 48 million.

Staff

242 including officials, temporary and contract staff and seconded national experts.