2005 discharge: EC general budget, Court of Justice

PURPOSE: presentation of the final annual accounts of the European Community for the financial year 2005 – Other institutions : Section IV – Court of Justice.

CONTENT: this document sets out the amount of expenditure and the financial statement of the Court of Justice for 2005 and presents an analysis of its financial management. The available appropriations set out in the Court’s 2005 budget amounted to EUR 229 million, a 93% implementation rate.

Main axes of 2004 expenditure : budget implementation of the Court can be characterised by:

• an under-estimation of amounts provided for immovable property;
• the continuation of obligations resulting from enlargement, in particular in terms of translation costs.

Amendments to the budget: throughout 2005, several budget lines were amended. Appropriation transfers between items were made in order to fund these amendments, concerning in particular:

• costs relating to building installations;
• translation costs following enlargement.

The main issues of the 2004 budget implementation can be summarised as follows :

Title I (Staff costs): this title was marked by the increase in costs relating to the recruitment of contractual agents following transfers from other lines. This items was increased by EUR 430 000.

Other appropriation transfers concern:

- increased appropriations to cover installation costs for officials from the new Member States;

- the anticipation of certain IT costs (essentially automatic translation).

This title was also marked by: i) the reduction in Members’ travel allowances; ii) the increase in representation costs.

Lastly, important budget amendments have been made to cover the increase in translation costs: this expenditure concerns in particular external translators who have been mobilised (more than 128 000 pages translated in 2005 compared to 98 000 in 2004). On the other hand, the mobilisation of external conference interpreters has decreased compared to 2004 due to efficient internal recruitment of interpreters.   

Title II (Operational expenditure):  building costs marked the 2005 budget showing a decrease in expenditure (down 45% from 2004). EUR 980 000 was transferred to enable the administrative services to conclude a contract with a company of experts to ensure the technical follow-up of the renovation works on the Palace. Another budget transfer was made to cover the re-examination of the leases of certain buildings by the Luxembourg authorities, that is EUR 600 000 (obliging the institution to cut back on cleaning and energy costs).

Overall, expenditure under this title decreased due to the fact that no payment took place under the “hire-purchase” item although EUR 36 million has been set aside in 2004.

Titre III (Particular expenditure): it mainly concerns the chapter devoted to lawyer fees and other expenses in order to improve the free service offering legal assistance (decrease and under-implementation of 81% compared to the amount initially provided).

For further details concerning the Court’s in 2005, please refer to the annexed detailed analysis of expenditure.