2001 discharge: EC general budget, European Parliament

PURPOSE : to present the revenue and expenditure account and the balance sheet concerning the activities of the budget for the financial year 2001 (European Parliament). CONTENT : this document sets out the amount of expenditure and the balance sheet for the other institutions of the Union (except the Commission) for the financial year 2001, in particular the European Parliament. The document shows that the appropriations included in the Parliament budget (including SAB 5/2001) amounted to EUR 1.012.600.000, up to 99.33%. These appropriations have been effectively paid up to a limit of EUR 869.193.296, this represents 86.42% in comparison with the commitments contracted (2000: 91.05%). The percentage of appropriations to be carried forward to the financial year 2002 amounts to 13.49% of the total budgetary appropriations, a net increase in comparison to the previous year (2000: 8.89%). The 2001 budget implementation has been marked by a series of amendments brought about by the initial allowance of certain posts, in particular: - expenditure of which the authoriser is not the supervisor (e.g. weightings); - un-blocking of the appropriations in the reserve by the budgetary authorities (in particular staff costs); - extraordinary event (net increase of building insurance following the 9/11/01 attacks); - real-estate policy : reorientation of the Parliament' real-estate budgetary policy. The aim is to speed-up the financing of the Louise Weiss building in Strasbourg by accumulating all the available appropriations to this effect within the budget and by proceeding to an advance payment without fines. The SAB 5/2001 had precisely this objective with an amount of EUR 24.8 million plus a series of appropriation transfers between budget lines for a total amount of almost EUR 100 million. Concerning more generally the use of appropriations by heading, the year 2001 had been marked by the strengthening of the appropriations relating to travel expenses of members of the institutions. These appropriations enabled MEPs to take part in several missions, for example to the Balkans and to Timor as well as a WTO conference in Qatar. Expenses linked to the cost of missions and visits have also increased in order to cover the costs resulting in the signature of the Cotonou Agreement. Overall the expenditure for mission have decreased from 6% between 1998 and 2000. Between 2000 and 2001, the number of mission days has decreased from 4%. On the other hand, the missions linked to external relations have clearly increased. The other facts marking the institutions expenditure are: - interinstitutional co-operation marked by the increase in continual vocational training costs of staff and the strengthening of external translation costs; - the setting up of a new Computer Centre and the preparation of setting up future Parliament Register (following the implementation of Regulation 1049/2001/EC on public access to Union documents).�