Brussels, 24/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament budgetary control committee recommended on Tuesday 23 March that the decision on granting the Secretary General of the Council a discharge in respect of implementation of the Council's 2008 budget (see EUROPE 10104 on the discharge of European Parliament budget). The report by Ryszard Czarnecki (ECR, Poland) on discharge for institutions other than the Commission and Parliament will be debated by the EP at its plenary session in Strasbourg on 19-22 April. Last year, it was only in November that the EP passed the 2007 Council expenditure.
The committee says the Council has not submitted its annual activity report, citing the 1970 “gentleman's agreement” under which the EP and Council do not check one another's operating expenses. It recommends that the EP grant discharges in respect of the implementation of the 2008 budgets of the other institutions (Court of Justice, Court of Auditors, Committee of the Regions, etc). There are similarly no problems for 22 of the 23 agencies, with CEPOL, the European Police College, being the odd one out. The budgetary control committee suggests delaying this decision because of: - structural problems within the agency; - and the internal investigation launched by OLAF (misappropriation of public funds for private purposes). It is proposed to grant discharge to the Commission on the implementation of the general EU budget for 2008 (improvement of management of agricultural funds, but still too many errors with regard to structural funds, research and external action). (L.C./transl.rt)