The ‘discharge’ is the final approval of the EU budget for a given year following the audit and finalisation of the annual accounts. It is granted by the European Parliament on a recommendation from the Council. The discharge means, in simple terms, the approval of the way the Joint Undertaking (JU) implemented the budget in that financial year.
The decision is based on a review of the annual accounts, the European Court of Auditors’ (ECA) annual report including its official statement of assurance and the JU responses to specific questions and further requests for information. The procedure ends in either the granting, postponement or refusal of the discharge.
During the 2013 discharge procedure, F4E was called to the hearings of the Council and the Parliament because the ECA 2013 Report included for the first time some concerns in relation to the cost and delays of the project. As a result, the Budgetary Control Committee issued at the end of March a recommendation to postpone the discharge until F4E provided further assurance on some of the concerns raised.
Finally, and thanks to the additional information provided by F4E and the Commission, the plenary sitting in Strasbourg voted on 29 April 2015, in favour of granting the discharge to F4E for its 2013 budget. During the last few weeks, F4E managed to provide in depth information on the overall improvements which are being implemented at the level of both the ITER project and F4E, reassuring the European Parliament who acknowledged the efforts made to address the weaknesses identified.
This positive vote is just the starting point and is not a “carte blanche” for F4E, as the European Parliament has imposed at the same time some additional reporting requirements on F4E, to be able to monitor closer the progress of the ITER project and the improvement of F4E. F4E would need to continue to work hard to reassure its political stakeholders that the project is progressing well and that it is appropriately managed, in particular in terms of cost, schedule and also on the way F4E controls and monitors contract implementation.
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