Four EU agencies did not obtain a favourable audit opinion on the legality and regularity of the payments underlying the accounts, including three for shortcomings in public procurement, notes the European Court of Auditors’ annual report, published on Thursday 26 October, on the management of the finances of the 43 EU agencies, almost all of which are financed from the EU budget.
In its report, the Court of Auditors issued favourable audit opinions on the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the revenue underlying the accounts for all the agencies. However, for the payments underlying the accounts, it only gave a favourable opinion to 39 of the 43 agencies.
For the four agencies that received a failing grade, the amounts of misspent funds were too high, totalling around €28.2 million. It should be noted that only one agency had an insufficient rating in 2021, and three in 2020.
This year, the Court of Auditors found irregularities in the award and implementation of public procurement contracts for three agencies: the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL), the European Union Agency for the Operational Management of Large-scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (eu-LISA), and the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union (CdT).
For the fourth agency, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the auditors found weaknesses in the management and control systems.
Generally speaking, errors in public procurement contracts were on the increase in the agencies in 2022 and weaknesses were noted in the contracts of 24 agencies, compared with 14 in 2020 and 22 in 2021. As a result, 48 observations were made by the auditors on the agencies' procurement practices (compared with 18 in 2020 and 34 in 2021).
To see the report: https://aeur.eu/f/9aj (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)