2019 discharge: General budget of the EU - Court of Justice

The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Ramona STRUGARIU (Renew Europe, RO) calling on the European Parliament to give discharge to the Registrar of the Court of Justice in respect of the implementation of the Court’s budget for the financial year 2019.

Members noted with satisfaction that the Court of Auditors observed that no significant weaknesses in respect of the audited topics relating to human resources and procurement for the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

The payments as a whole for the year ended on 31 December 2019 for administrative and other expenditure of the Court of Justice were free from material error.

Budgetary and financial management

Members noted that in 2019, the CJEU’s budget amounted to EUR 429 468 936 (EUR 410 025 089 in 2018) and that the implementation rate was 98.7 % (compared to 99.18 % in 2018). Almost 75 % of the CJEU’s budget was allocated to expenditure on the members and staff. The report noted that the CJEU continues to overestimate some of its commitments for various budget lines. In this regard, Members called on the CJEU to pursue its efforts to ensure sound financial management for all budget lines in order to avoid significant discrepancies between commitments and payments.

Court cases

The report pointed out that the Court of Justice registered a large number of new cases in 2019, 966, a 13.78 % increase compared to 2018. A large number of new cases were also brought before the General Court in 2019, 939, compared to 834 in 2018. A record number of closed cases was recorded at 865, a 13.8% increase compared to 2018.  

In 2019, the issues dealt with by the Court of Justice related mainly to competition and state aid and the area of freedom, security and justice, while the issues dealt with by the General Court concerned mainly state aid and intellectual and industrial property.

Members welcomed the reduction of the average length of proceedings before the Court of Justice and the General Court.

Human resources

The distribution of posts by sector of activity remains similar to that of previous years, with almost 85 % of posts dedicated to jurisdictional and linguistic activities. Noting with concern the high number of cases of burnout reported in recent years within the CJEU, Members urged the CJEU to closely monitor the effectiveness of the newly introduced measures to address the increasing workload and to make more substantial efforts to prevent burnout.

Communication

The report noted that one of the main points of the CJEU’s communication activities in 2019 was the increased use of proprietary social media in order to ensure a greater dissemination of its information.