2022 discharge: European Foundation for the improvement of living and working conditions (Eurofound)

The European Parliament decided to grant discharge to the Executive Director of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) for the financial year 2022 and to approve the closure of the accounts for the financial year in question.

Noting that the Court of Auditors has stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the Foundation’s annual accounts for the financial year 2022 are reliable and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular, Parliament adopted by 543 votes to 59, with 25 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of recommendations, which form an integral part of the decision on discharge and which add to the general recommendations set out in the resolution on performance, financial management and control of EU agencies:

Foundation’s financial statements

The final budget of Eurofound for the financial year 2022 was EUR 22 438 000 representing an increase of 3.13% compared to 2021.

Budget and financial management

The budget monitoring efforts during the financial year 2022 resulted in a budget implementation rate of current year appropriations of 100 %. The current year payment appropriations execution rate was 79.93 %, representing a decrease of 3.63 % compared to 2021.

Parliament called on the budgetary authority to address the need of proper adjustment of the Foundation’s budget within the next MFF.

Other observations

Parliament also made a series of observations regarding performance, staff policy, internal control and communication.

In particular, it noted that:

-  the delivery of work programme outputs planned for 2022 reached 97 % of achievement, with 30 out of 31 deliverables achieved in 2022;

- for a third year in a row, the Foundation noted an improved performance with regard to the uptake of the Foundation’s expertise in key Union-level policy documents, from 74 % in 2021 to 82 % in 2022;

- some of the Foundation’s most important achievements in 2022 included the publication of the overview report of the sixth European Working Conditions Survey revealing a positive association of the job quality with work-life balance during the COVID-19 crisis and the publication of the annual review of minimum wages in 2022 showing, among other, the negative impact of the inflation on low-wage earners;

- the Foundation carried out an exercise of zero-based budgeting in 2022, whereby each contract in place was scrutinised in order to identify potential efficiencies with a view to optimising the allocation of the Foundation’s financial and human resources;

- on 31 December 2022, the establishment plan was 92.3 % completed (compared to 89 % in 2021), with 9 officials and 75 temporary agents appointed out of 91 authorised under the Union budget (91 authorised posts in 2021);

- in the framework of a new 4-year mandate starting 1 April 2023, new declarations of conflicts of interest and CVs of the members of the Foundation’s management board have been published;

- in the Court’s report, weaknesses were observed regarding the Foundation’s traineeship programme, firstly in relation to the publication of the rules governing the traineeship that have been published on the website without having been formally adopted, and secondly with regard to the trainees’ remuneration;

- the Foundation increased its online presence and public visibility during 2022 with the launch of 36 publications on the Foundation’s website, the increase in the use of data visualisation in blog posts, the promotion of the Foundation’s work through partnerships with media, etc.