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2003 discharge: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

2004/2061(DEC)

Having examined the revenue and expenditure account for the financial year 2003 and the balance sheet of revenue and expenditure at 31 December 2003 of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and the Court of Auditors' report on the annual accounts of the Agency, the Council recommends that the European Parliament gives a discharge to the Director of the Agency in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2003.

To recall, EUR 5.5 million (89%) of the EUR 6.2 million in appropriations carried forward from the financial year 2002 to the financial year 2003 have been utilized. EUR 6.6 million in appropriations have been carried forward from the financial year 2003 to the financial year 2004 and EUR 1.2 million have been cancelled.

Observations in the Court of Auditors' report in relation to the financial year 2003 call for certain comments by the Council, which are annexed to this Recommendation.

The Council welcomes the fact that the Court of Auditors has been able to obtain reasonable assurance that the Agency's annual accounts for the financial year ended 31 December 2003 are reliable and that the underlying transactions, taken as a whole, are legal and regular. However, some observations need to be made.

Although there has been a significant reduction in comparison to the previous year, the amount of the appropriations relating to operational activities carried-over remains high. The Agency must continue to improve the monitoring of its activities.

As regards a programme of subsidies for the collation and dissemination of good practices to reduce the risks to health and safety in small and medium enterprises, the Council regrets the fact that a number of payments have been made without adequate supporting documents and urges the Agency to redress this situation, in particular by carrying out checks at project holder level.

Finally, the Council shares the Court's opinion that the Agency should improve its system for checking expenditure declared by topic centres.