MEPs decided, on Wednesday 23 October, to refuse approval of the accounts of the European Asylum Support Office for the financial year 2017. Last year, the European Parliament had refused discharge for this agency’s expenditures (see EUROPE 12124/5).
By adopting (694 votes in favour, 2 against and 2 abstentions) Petri Savarmaa's (EPP, Finland) report on the Office's 2017 asylum budget, the Parliament considers the internal control system to be “inappropriate” and regrets that the amount of errors resulting from non-compliant payments amounts to at least €7.7 million, or 10.3% of total payments made by the Office in 2017.
In addition, the European Parliament has once again (as it has since the 2009 budget!) denied discharge to the Secretary-General of the EU Council for the implementation of the budget of the European Council and the EU Council for the 2017 financial year. By adopting the report by Isabel García Muñoz (S&D, Spain), the European Parliament deeply regrets the EU Council's lack of participation in the EU’s Transparency Register (of lobbyists) and is concerned about the information reported by the European media on the use of private sponsors by Member States hosting the EU Presidency (Member States are supposed to finance their own presidency). The EU Council is invited to adopt guidelines to promote financial transparency and the independence of the Presidencies. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)