Meeting in Brussels on Thursday 11 April for a mini-plenary session, MEPs approved (by 438 votes to 167 with 5 abstentions) the European Commission’s budgetary management for 2022.
However, a number of criticisms have been levied, including the high rate of error in spending and the amount of European commitments that are still outstanding (€450 billion, which is largely attributable to the Next Generation EU package).
In the resolution accompanying the discharge decision, MEPs regret the “political contradiction” in the payment of funds to Hungary in exchange for it approving the provision of aid to Ukraine.
They warned the Commission against “watering down” the EU’s climate objectives and called for the pace of investment to be stepped up, noting that by 2022 the EU had not demonstrated the level of efficacy required to meet the targets that had been set for 2030, 2040 and 2050.
MEPs also adopted an amendment repudiating the process for appointing the EU Special Envoy for SMEs and called on the Commission to use a “genuinely transparent and open process” (see other news).
At the request of Guy Verhofstadt (Renew Europe, Belgian), the European Parliament validated (515 votes in favour, 62 against and 20 abstentions) the postponement of the vote on the EU Council discharge until the next plenary session, and until such time as Member States have taken a decision about supplying the missile protection systems that were requested by Ukraine (see other news).
The purpose of the annual discharge is to hold the European institutions to account for their use of the EU budget, in accordance with European rules and the Union's political priorities. This forms a crucial element of Parliament’s budgetary control role.
The results of the vote on all discharge decisions for each EU institution and agency can be viewed here: https://aeur.eu/f/bq5 (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)