On Tuesday 15 October, the European Court of Auditors issued a positive report on the financial condition of the 41 European executive agencies and entities, even for the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) based in Malta (see EUROPE 12113/18).
"Financial management in the European agencies is constantly improving", said Rimantas Šadžius, the Member of the European Court of Auditors who is responsible for this report and who expressed his appreciation on Monday 14 October.
The Court has thus validated the reliability of the 2018 accounts for all European agencies. The legality of payments and the underlying revenues were also identified, except for EASO, which received a qualified opinion on its payments.
Of the sixty or so measures that EASO identified to remedy the shortcomings observed (see EUROPE 12322/8), about thirty were implemented during the period covered by the audit. One of the major improvements concerns the creation of a ‘legal officer’.
Problems were still observed regarding public procurement procedures (hiring temporary agents in migrant identification hot spots) and in the ex ante and ex post control processes of financial operations. In addition, due to the insufficient number of experts made available by Member States, EASO has delegated essential tasks to external business entities, to the point of developing a "critical dependence" on them, the European auditors note.
"The situation at EASO was rather dramatic. Now we are seeing an improvement, but it is not enough for us", said Mr Šadžius, for whom this issue will be crucial when the European Parliament considers the discharge for the 2018 budget.
Errors detected in public procurement
More generally, the Court of Auditors notes that, because of their complexity, public procurement procedures remain one of the aspects of the financial management of the European agencies which are "most prone to errors".
"The biggest problem is the complexity of the rules, which makes it easier to make mistakes", said Mr Šadžius.
The auditors identified several weaknesses, including the use of inappropriate award criteria, the acceptance of abnormally low bids and the use of negotiations instead of more competitive procedures.
Nevertheless, no public contracts which were analysed were passed on to the OLAF Anti-Fraud Office, whereas three had been passed on in the previous year.
It should also be noted that the auditors advise European agencies to check the impact of Brexit on their own budgets due to a potential reduction in their invoicing to business entities.
The European Court of Auditors has not quantified the loss of revenue, but it should be low. It recalls that the budgets of the European agencies together represent only 2.9% of the EU budget and that only three European agencies - 60% of whose budget is financed by the 28 Member States - are involved.
View the report: https://bit.ly/33A4yCt (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)