2004 discharge: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

Having examined the Agency’s revenue and expenditure account and the observations made by Court of Auditors, the Council recommends the European Parliament to give a discharge to the Director of the Agency in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2004.

In doing so, the Council confirms that EUR 5.6 million (84 %) of the EUR 6.6 million in appropriations carried forward from the financial year 2003 to the financial year 2004 have been utilised. In addition, EUR 2.8 million in appropriations were carried forward from the financial year 2004 to the financial year 2005 and EUR 2.2 million were cancelled.

In parallel, the Council makes accompanying comments on the discharge which should be followed up. In particular, it:

§         expects detailed rules for the implementation of the Agency's new Financial Regulation and internal control procedures based on risk analysis to be put in place as soon as possible;

§         notes with dissatisfaction that the standard term of framework contracts, as stipulated in the implementation rules of the Financial Regulation, was exceeded in four cases and urges the Foundation to avoid such situations in the future;

§         notes that while the negative budget outturn for the financial year 2003 has not been included in an amending budget for the financial year 2004, the Council expects this to be done in the future in order to respect the principles of unity and of budget accuracy.