2002 discharge: EC general budget, Council

PURPOSE : to present the revenue and expenditure account and the balance sheet concerning the activities of the budget for the financial year 2002 (Council). CONTENT : this document sets out the amount of revenue and expenditure and the balance sheet for the other institutions of the Union (except the Commission) for the financial year 2002, in particular the Council. The document states that the Council's budget for 2002 amounted to EUR 415.782.000 (SAB 6/2002 of EUR 13,9 million included aiming at anticipated expenditure of publication of the enlargement acquis). The amount of EUR 414.816.321 was committed (on March 31, 2003). The payments made from the committed appropriations amount to EUR 346.948.891: that is 99,77%. 2002 was primarily remembered by the continuation of work of modernisation of the financial management of the Council and by the adaptation of the institution to the requirements of enlargement and with the new structures and missions rising from the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Among the elements having implications on the budgetary level in 2002, one notes in particular: - preliminary commitments for enlargement (human resources, construction, installation of buildings, development of the Accession Treaties); - planning and the installation of the infrastructure of the first European Summit in Brussels (December 2002): transformation of the basements of the Justus Lipsius; - integration into the Secretariat, of new structures concerned with the CFSP, in particular, expenditure related to financial regime of seconded national military experts and expenses stemming from their tasks within the mandate of the European Union's Personnel Office; - expenditure relating to the Special Representatives of the Union: that is to say 6 special representatives, including 5 financed from the Council's budget. It concerns the special Representative from the Union (RS) for South-east Europe, the RS for the Middle East peace process, the RS for the Great Lakes, the RS in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the RS in Afghanistan; - the installation of the Secretariat of Convention on the Future of Europe in the Justus Lipsius building for a value of EUR 2 million (the direct taxation of the Council's budget to the Convention's funds was EUR 400.000); - preparation of the "outsourcing" of the restaurants and cafeterias; - the "frontloading" operation of budgetary expenditure which has the aim of raising the appropriations on the under- utilised budgetary headings and to anticipate in 2002 the expenditure envisaged in 2003: for the Council, this operation concentrated on the publication of the acquis in the languages of the new Member States.�