2001 discharge: EC general budget, Court of Auditors

PURPOSE : to present the balance sheets and the revenue and expenditure accounts concerning the implementation of the 2001 budget : Section V - Court of Auditors. CONTENT : this document presents the amount of expenditure and the balance sheets of the other institutions of the Union (except the Commission) for 2001. It highlights, in particular, the expenditure of the Court of Auditors. The Court's 2001 budget was 73.386.100 EUR incurring a height of 98,07%. The payments on outstanding commitments to be transferred to the following financial year represent 14,52% of the total. The 2001 budget of the Court of Auditors highlights the following elements: 1) mission expenses : an increase of 5,26% compared to 2000 : in 2001, the average cost of the missions undertaken by auditors has increased at a good pace (an increase of 16% in the per diem cost of a mission) which justifies the increase for the financial year; 2) staffing costs : part of the staffing expenditure entitled "staff on active duty" was not utilised (EUR 1,4 million) due to the delay in the organisation of a competition. Certain positions were therefore still vacant during the entire year; 3) real estate : the Court is currently building an extension to its main building in Luxembourg. Work started during 2001 and an amount of EUR 4,14 million was transferred to a bank account guaranteed at EUR 10 million for the duration of the project. There was also a large transfer of appropriations at the end of the financial year to chapter 20 ("Property investment") in order to assign the funds not utilised from the 2001 budget to the construction of above mentioned building.�