Brussels, 10/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - As expected, on Thursday 10 May the European Parliament postponed its decision on the discharge of the secretary general of the Council for the execution of the Council's budget for the 2010 tax year. It does, however, hope to obtain a possible agreement under the current acting Presidency.
By adopting an amendment submitted by the ECR, the EP notes that the Council ought to be transparent and fully accountable to the European citizens for the funds entrusted to it as a Union institution. The EP insists that this means the Council must participate fully and in good faith in the annual discharge process, “by responding in detail to the annual questionnaire prepared by the relevant parliamentary committee; by participating in any public hearing organised by the committee as requested; by being represented at all relevant meetings of the committee when the discharge is under discussion”. The EP considers that it has the right to provide a discharge in an autonomous way, not only for the section of the budget executed by the Commission but also for sections of the budget executed by the other institutions.
The EP is calling on the secretary general of the Council to provide its parliamentary committee responsible for discharge procedures with detailed written responses to a number of different questions, particularly on internal and external audits, the costs linked to the role of Catherine Ashton and administrative and operational expenditure relating to the Common Foreign and Security Policy / Common and Security Defence Policy (CFSP/CSDP). (LC/transl.fl)