2004 discharge: European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia

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

In doing so, it confirms that EUR 1.0 million (81 %) of the EUR 1.3 million in appropriations carried over from the financial year 2003 to the financial year 2004, have been used. In addition, EUR 0.9 million in appropriations have been carried forward from the financial year 2004 to the financial year 2005 and EUR 1.8 million have been cancelled.

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

§         urges the Centre to enforce implementing rules on the management of public procurement in line with its Financial Regulation;

§         deplores once again, as already pointed out in its recommendations for the financial year 2003, the way carry-overs are established and urges the Centre to improve the implementation of the budget, in respect of the principle of annuality;

§         takes note that the Centre is carrying out a risk analysis in order to assess the relevance of its internal control standards and asks it to improve the ex-ante verification checklists.