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EU Agencies Network
report to the European Parliament on the followup to the 2012 budgetary discharge
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 2
2. Follow-up to the 2012 discharge ........................................................................................................ 3
2.1 Administrative processes .............................................................................................................. 3
2.2 Cooperation among Agencies: shared services and synergies ..................................................... 3
2.3 Conflict of interest ........................................................................................................................ 4
2.4 Gender equality ............................................................................................................................ 6
2.5 Visibility ......................................................................................................................................... 7
2.6 Publication of data ........................................................................................................................ 9
2.7 Disciplinary proceedings ............................................................................................................. 10
2.8 Reporting to the Discharge Authority ......................................................................................... 10
3. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................... 11
1. Introduction
On April 3rd 2014 the European Parliament (EP) passed the resolution: "Report on 2012 Discharge performance, financial management and control of the EU Agencies - Discharge in respect of the
implementation of the budget of the European Union Agencies for the financial year 2012:
performance, financial management and control (2013/2256(DEC))".
The resolution contains a number of recommendations that require follow-up by the European
Parliament, the EU Agencies, the Commission, the European Court of Auditors and the EU Member
States.
Of these, 18 recommendations are addressed to the EU Agencies collectively and 11 follow-up actions
were identified. The actions follow 9 themes that deal with the issues of:
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administrative processes;
cooperation among Agencies;
conflicts of interest policies;
gender equality;
visibility;
publication of data;
disciplinary proceedings;
reporting to the Budgetary Discharge Authority, and
cooperation with the CONT Secretariat.
Whereas the discharge is granted to individual Heads of Agency1 and, therefore, it remains the sole
responsibility of the individual Agencies to provide information and to report on their actions and
activities to the EP, in the 2012 Discharge horizontal report actions at a Network level were identified
Following its meeting of 6 June 2014, the EU Agency Directors agreed to submit a common report on
the follow-up of the 2012 Budget Discharge for the EU Agencies Network-related actions that would
be drafted by the Agency chairing the Network of EU Agencies, the FRA.
Subsequently, the FRA carried out an assessment of the actions taken by the EU Agencies Network
with respect to the implementation of the Roadmap on the follow-up to the Common Approach on
EU decentralised Agencies, and where more input was required, a survey was launched and 28 EU
Agencies replied.
The follow-up actions to the European Parliament recommendations where a collective response was
identified by the EU Agencies Network are presented in this paper. The actions have been prepared
through the Coordination of the EU Agencies' Network (hereinafter “the Network”).
Overall the results indicate that the EU Agencies have followed-up on the recommendations of the EP
Resolution. This is particularly true in the areas of: cooperation amongst Agencies; improvement of
administrative processes; prevention of conflicts of interest; introduction of policies and practices to
promote awareness of gender issues and equality, where the EU Agencies Network has been very
active in discussing and sharing actual practices in recent years.
1
or as otherwise foreseen in the Agency’s establishing regulation
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2. Follow-up to the 2012 discharge
2.1 Administrative processes
Recommendation §33: “Urges the Agencies to examine their internal administrative processes with
a view to reducing administrative costs, which are generally too high across the Agencies;”
Agency response: All Agencies participating in the follow-up survey have already examined internal
administrative processes in line with the recommendation 33. It should be noted that such an
examination takes place on regular basis. Number of Agencies have a regular process assessment
carried out in the frame of the ISO Certification (ISO 9001) as well as audits performed by the Quality
and Internal Audit Departments. Some Agencies have contracted the assistance of consultants to
undertake an evaluation of their internal administrative processes. The efficiency gains are always
sought after and the reduction of administrative costs across the Agencies could be observed in nearly
all areas achieved by specific actions such as:
-
-
introduction of sophisticated IT tools (paperless workflows, automation of HR process and
project management etc.) that improved efficiency of the human resources allocation and
contributed to better time management;
further expanding the shared services between the Agencies such as processes related to the
ex-post controls;
alignment of processes across the organisation and their simplification where possible, etc.
2.2 Cooperation among Agencies: shared services and synergies
The European Parliament reiterates the importance of the cooperation between the Agencies with
emphasis on shared services, synergies, exchange of best practices, joint research projects, exchange
of research methodology, memoranda of understanding, consultations on working programmes etc.
(Ref.: §4, §11, §35, §36, §38, §39, §40, §90).
Recommendation §40: “Considers that closer coordination should be put in place between certain
Agencies, in particular as regards decisions impacting on the remit of another Agency; proposes that
the Agencies concerned reach an agreement among themselves, with the involvement of the relevant
stakeholders, in order to avoid competing legislation; calls on the Agencies, in such cases, to inform
the Parliament responsible committees at all times;”
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Agency response:
The way Agencies cooperate amongst themselves continues
to evolve and will intensify further in the coming years to
enable Agencies to continue to deliver on their objectives.
The Agencies are strongly committed to further increase
efficiency and, within the framework of the EU Agencies
Network, the Agencies continue to expand their already wellestablished cooperation and shared-services (e.g. in the areas
of IT, policies, procedures, transfer of knowledge etc.).
The Agencies have created an online communication tool that
serves as platform for exchange of information, knowledge
and best practices among the Agencies. This platform
includes a database of shared services in various areas,
references to new initiatives, etc.
Do you have Memorandum
of Understanding signed
with other Agencies?
7%
11%
No answer
82%
No
Yes
The Heads of Agencies have recently endorsed a template for the Consolidated Annual Activity Report
and the Guidelines for the Single Programming Document. Based on existing best practices, the
Agencies are further developing and introducing a toolkit for Activity Based Budgeting (ABB) /Activity
Based Management (ABM) /Activity Based Costing (ABC). Several Agencies have already implemented
ABM, or are in the process thereof, which helps them take informed decisions on setting priorities,
discontinuing activities as well as on the level of outsourcing based on robust and reliable data. In this
context, the allocation of an Agency’s resources is
consistent with the priorities in each of the areas of
Do you expect to sign any MoU in
activity and their objectives. The implementation of
the coming future with other
ABM allows the Agency to systematically assess the
Agencies?
costs of each area of activity and compare them to the
results achieved.
23%
No answer
No
12%
65%
Yes
The cooperation between Agencies continuously
increases also in their respective specialised areas.
Number of Agencies have already concluded
agreements among themselves (i.e. 82% of
respondents), often with the involvement of the
relevant stakeholders, and many new initiatives are
expected to be concluded in the near future (i.e. 65% of
respondents).
2.3 Conflict of interest
The European Parliament reiterates the importance of management and prevention of conflict of
interest. In this regard, it refers to the Joint Statement of 19 July 2012, the Special Report No 15/2012
of the Court of Auditors and the Commission´s guidelines published in December 2013. It requests the
Agencies to take the following actions:
Recommendation §67: “Recalls the Court of Auditors' recommendation inviting all Union institutions
and decentralised bodies to examine whether the recommendations of its Special Report No.
15/2012 are relevant and applicable to them; calls on the Agencies to report to the discharge
authority on this matter before the end of 2014;”
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Recommendation §73: “Considers that following the publication of the Commission’s guidelines, the
Agencies may need to redraft their policies for the prevention and management of conflicts of interest
to bring them in line with the Commission’s guidelines and the Court of Auditors’ recommendations
without hesitation; acknowledges that most Agencies planned to review their respective policy on
the prevention and management of conflicts of interest based on those guidelines, and calls on the
Agencies to report to the discharge authority on this matter as well as on the actions taken in the
framework of the 2012 discharge follow-up before the end of 2014;”
Recommendation §74: “Notes that seconded national experts, external and interim staff are not
specifically mentioned in the guidelines; requests that the Agencies take these groups of staff into
account when evaluating and redrafting their conflicts of interest policies;”
Recommendation §76: “Regrets that the declarations of interests and curriculum vitae of a majority
of Agencies’ management boards’ members, management staff and external and in-house experts are
not publicly available; reiterates its view that a high level of transparency is a key element to mitigate
risks of conflicts of interest; calls, therefore, on the Agencies that have not yet done so to make
available on their websites, by the deadline of 1 December 2014, their policy and/or arrangements
on the prevention and management of conflict of interest and their implementing rules as well as
the list of their management boards' members, management staff and external and in-house
experts, together with their respective declarations of interests and curriculum vitae;”
Agency response:
The trust of the citizen in the EU institutions, agencies and bodies
is of highest importance to the EU Agencies. Therefore, number
of concrete measures and tools have been introduced by the
Agencies to adequately address the risks of actual and perceived
conflict of interest in line with the Agencies' exposure, which
depend on the tasks entrusted to them.
Do you have policies for
management and
prevention of conflict of
interest?
4%
8%
The EU Agencies are well advanced in terms of prevention and
management of conflict of interest, where 88% have already in
place relevant policies. The remaining 12% expect to adopt the
relevant policy by the end of year 2014.
Furthermore, 66% of the responding Agencies declared that their
relevant policies for the prevention and management of conflict
of interest have been already adapted to the Commission’s
guidelines and the Court of Auditors’ recommendations.
No
answer
88%
No
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Have you adapted your policies
with the Commission's
quidelines?
15%
No answer
19%
66%
No
Yes
To the date of drafting this report, 81% of the responding
Agencies indicated that their policies for the prevention and
management of conflict of interest take into account
seconded national experts, external and interim staff.
The EU Agencies share the commitment to the transparency
and to the date vast majority of the Agencies (i.e. 61%) have
already published the CVs and declaration of interests of the
Management Boards members, management staff and
external and in-house experts on their website. A number
of remaining Agencies declare that the missing information
will be published upon adoption of the revised policies.
The Network of EU Agencies continues to serve as an
important channel for discussion and sharing of best
practices in this area. The EU Agencies continue to share
between themselves new developments and best practices in this field, including on the
implementation of their conflict- of-interest policies.
2.4 Gender equality
2.4.1 Recommendation §86: “Reiterates the importance of putting in place policies ensuring that
women and men are properly represented on the Agencies' governing bodies; calls on the Agencies'
executive directors, to ensure gender equality among Agency staff as a whole and among people in
positions of responsibility, also calls on the management boards of the and on the Commission to
uphold the principles of gender equality and to take account of the strategy launched by the
Commission in 2010 to achieve a better gender balance in positions of responsibility;”
Agency response: It should be noted that all EU Agencies operate in accordance with the policy of
equal opportunities of the European Union institutions and other EU bodies. All EU Agencies accept
applications for positions without distinction on the grounds of gender, race, colour, ethnic or social
origin, genetic features, language, religion, political or any other opinion, membership of a national
minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation.
A number of EU Agencies have introduced specific policies and guidelines on gender equality that go
beyond the EU Staff Regulations, and are in line with the relevant parts of the EU Commission's"
Strategy for equality between women and men 2010-2015." However, it was recognised by the Heads
of EU Agencies that more could be done to promote this within the Network.
Furthermore, a number of EU Agencies are involved in the areas of non-discrimination and equality,
and their core tasks are featured within the Network.
Most relevant to gender equality issues, the Director of European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)
made a presentation on the implementation of gender policies in the work place, specifically in
management boards, to help the Network better understand the practical implications of these
policies.
This included explaining background information, the policy context, the state of affairs in business
and the Gender Equality Index for the EU which was launched by the EIGE in June 2013. Whilst
acknowledging that the responsibility for Management Board membership is with the Member States,
it was agreed that EU Agencies are also in a position to be active in addressing the issue.
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Practical steps have been agreed to promote awareness of gender issues. Agencies are invited to
nominate persons responsible for stakeholder communications in Agencies (usually the Management
Board secretariats) to relay the message to their relevant boards.
Taking into account the founding regulations of Agencies and their field of operations, the message
will be tailored so that they could function in their respective environment. This shall include preparing
arguments on why better gender balance is desirable and the outcomes would be a general
framework as well as an Agency-specific framework for gender equality.
The Heads of Agency have welcomed the expertise provided by EIGE and appreciates that the
proposed approach takes into account the different realities of Agencies. Agencies have agreed to be
active in drafting gender equality policies and guidelines that are suited to their specific needs. The
offer of assistance from EIGE is also available.
2.5 Visibility
2.5.1 Recommendation §14: “(…) Stresses that the Agencies have a responsibility to ensure that their
websites mention that they are Agencies of the Union (…) Notes that the websites must ensure the
visibility where the funds from the Union budget are being used,”
Agency response: As stated in the report addressed to the EP, Council and Commission on the
implementation of the Commission's Roadmap: "Agency's activities in 2013 relating to the Common
Approach", by early 2014 nearly all Agencies have included the statement on their websites that they
are Agencies of the European Union.
2.5.2. Recommendation §20: “(…) Requests that the Agencies enhance their work and reporting on
social accountability,”
Agency response: All contracts signed by Agencies for external services (cleaning, security surveillance
etc.) bind the contractors to comply with the local labour and tax legislation.
EU Agencies have also undertaken actions that further promote social accountability, either due to
the social profile of the Agency's specific mission or in relation to the local communities in which they
are based, of which some examples are presented below:
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the EMA publishes the overwhelming proportion of its output on its public website, including
information for patients, healthcare professionals and the general public. Part of the public
transparency and visibility outputs are required by legislation, but most are the result of
specific measures introduced by the Agency to improve public information and awareness.
The Agency acknowledges it social and environmental obligations and as part of the Agency’s
relocation to its new premises, in the first instance, recycled furniture predominantly through
the European Commission which maintains compatible furniture. The Agency also offered the
remainder of the furniture and other obsolete office equipment to charities and local
authorities by means of a transparent procedure which was advertised on the Agency’s
website. Environmental considerations were one of the factors in the Agency’s selection of its
new premises and the new building has achieved a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment
Environmental Assessment Methodology) rating of ‘Excellent’,
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Cedefop actively supported the municipality of Thessaloniki in exploring possibilities to map
and match skills at local/regional level and it regularly welcomes visiting groups from local
schools and universities. Cedefop also annually redistributes declassified IT equipment to local
schools and charities, based on a transparent process of application and allocation,
-
the ETF’s mission is to contribute, in the context of EU external relations policies, to improving
human capital development, in its 30 partner countries. As an integral part of its approach,
the ETF seeks to engage civil society and citizens, as well as policy makers and practitioners,
in dialogue with a view to informing and shaping its approaches and interventions by means
of direct participation, traditional media, website and social media. The ETF has won
international awards for its innovative programme of social media activities during the
European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion in 2010, and has disseminated such
participative approaches across its activities, particularly in policy areas such as women and
work, social inclusion, youth employability, governance and entrepreneurship.
Finally, many Agencies have developed greening policies to raise staff awareness and achieve
compliance with environmental standards.
2.5.3 Recommendation §26: “Takes the view that at least the Agencies’ annual activity reports should
be published in all the official languages of the Union, not only in English, with French and German
versions being made available as a first step if it is not possible to publish in all official languages of
the Union immediately”
In which languages is your annual activity
report published in your website?
EN
1
EN, FR
5
EN, FR, DE
1
15
2
2
EN, FR, DE, ES, IT
EU 23*
Agency response: The results provided by the
Members of the EU Agencies Network
demonstrate that more can be done in the field of
multilingualism. Only one Agency, the Translation
Centre for the EU Bodies (CDT), publishes its
Annual Activity reports in all EU Languages, whilst
3 Agencies translate summaries of their AARs in 23
EU languages, with Gaelic being the exception.
The dominant language used for communications
by EU Agencies is English.
EU 24 ((incl. HR)
Under the lead of CdT, the EU Agencies Network
has carried out a survey on “EU Agencies’
*This figure represents Agencies that publish summaries
approaches to multilingualism 2014”. The survey
in 23 EU languages.
shows a very great variation in the current
approaches to multilingualism - as each Agency has
different target audiences, stakeholder demands as well as varying budget and scale, there can be no
'one size fits all' language policy.
Nevertheless, all Agencies are working towards a multilingual practice to be publicly available online
in all EU languages. The multilingual practice will take account of the EU Agency Communication
Network's (HCIN) recommendations on multilingual websites that were endorsed by the Heads of
Agency during their meeting in October 2014 and the points raised in the Chapter “Translation practice
/ Multilingualism” in the Communication Handbook for EU Agencies.
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As a minimum, the Agencies aim to include a section or document on their website that provides basic
information about the Agency in all the official EU languages. Agencies will continue to strive to make
their websites available in a wide number of EU languages. It should be stated that full compliance
with this recommendation requires a significant financial commitment.
2.5.4. Recommendation: “Requests that the Agency communicate the results and impact its work has
on European citizens in an accessible way, mainly through its website;” (Ref.: individual Agency
discharge reports):
Agency response: The results of Agencies’ work are made public via their Annual Activity Report which
all Agencies publish on their website. Part of the Annual Activity reports include descriptions that
explain in accessible terms how the Union funds are used in their budget.
Additionally, the majority of EU Agencies produce reports related to the impact of their specific tasks
that explain why their work is important and on the impact this has in the EU.
The results and impacts of Agencies’ work are targeted towards the specific sectors that are most
affected and benefit from the work of the Agency and the accompanying EU legislation and policies.
Typically, these are the EU citizen, EU Member States, civil society, industry, policy makers and other
stakeholders.
Finally, most Agencies monitor how their work is used as part of their performance monitoring system
and report on the results through Key Performance Indicators’ or other tools in their Annual Activity
Reports which are published on their website.
2.6 Publication of data
2.6.1 Recommendation §91: “Takes the view that publishing Union data makes innovations possible,
brings considerable benefits to the economy as a whole and makes for more efficient administration;
calls for the Agencies’ data to be made permanently available in machine-readable form, free of
charge, so that they are freely reusable;”
The EP recommendation on accessing data produced by the EU Agencies has been a priority of the
current Chair of the EU Agencies' Network, the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).
Agencies were established to help implement EU policies more efficiently and to respond to particular
needs identified by the EU institutions and Member States. Agencies provide advice to the EU and to
individual Member States, based on robust data. This helps to facilitate the exchange of best practice
between Member States and, ultimately, feeds into the process of evidence-based policymaking at
the EU and national levels.
Working closely with the EU’s Publication Office to make more of the EU Agency Network data
available has led to more than 170 datasets that are available from 14 EU Agencies. To achieve this
several training sessions on the EU Open Data Portal were organised and the available data sets of EU
Agencies were mapped. Opening up their data has been promoted within the EU Agencies Network
on the one hand, and increasing the visibility of the EU Agencies data to external stakeholders has
been carried on the other. Activities will continue on this issue in the coming years.
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2.7 Disciplinary proceedings
2.7.1 Recommendation §82: “Calls on the Agencies and on the Commission to reach an agreement on
the use of resources for handling disciplinary proceedings;”
Agency response: At the meeting of Heads of Administration on 5 June 2014 a representative from
the European Commission's Investigation and Disciplinary Office of the Commission (IDOC) gave a
presentation to the Heads of Administration on how to carry out disciplinary investigations.
At the same meeting it was agreed that the EU Agencies Network would establish the Inter-Agency
pool of Investigators. The candidates nominated by the Agencies will be trained in December
2014 as investigators by the Investigation and Disciplinary Office of the Commission (DG
HR.IDOC).
2.8 Reporting to the Discharge Authority
The European Parliament emphasises the need to strengthen the reporting system to the discharge
authority. Thus, in this section, concrete proposals are put forward, which aim at enhancing the
cooperation with both the Secretariat and the Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT).
2.8.1 Recommendation §17: “Considers that as regards the Agencies’ way of reporting to the
discharge authority, their democratic accountability should be further streamlined, and believes that
the relationship between Parliament and the Agencies would benefit from a stronger and better
structured system of reporting to Parliament; proposes the establishment of a working group on this
matter to come forward with proposals for improving the reporting system, both on the Agencies’ and
Parliament’s side;”
Recommendation §19: “Is of the opinion that the trend to focus reporting more on effectiveness and
results achieved is a positive one; requests to strengthen the reporting system further in this respect
to enhance the democratic accountability of the Agencies;”
Agency response: The Network, upon agreement with the new CONT Committee, will seek for the
establishment of a working group to come forward with proposals for improving the reporting system
(see recommendation 17).
2.8.2 Recommendation §21: “Reminds all the Agencies of their obligation to submit to the discharge
authority a report drawn up by their director summarising the number and nature of internal audits
conducted by their internal auditor, the recommendations made and the follow-up given to those
recommendations, as provided for in Article 72(5) of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002;”
Agency response: All Agencies are compliant with current Article 117 of the RAP and have submitted
the requested reports.
2.8.3 Recommendation §22: “Requests that before 15 October 2014 all the Agencies which are subject
to 2012 discharge procedure submit to the discharge authority their follow-up reports as provided for
in Article 110(2) of the FFR;”
Agency response: The Agencies respect the provisions of Article 110(2) of the FFR and have submitted
the requested reports.
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2.8.4 Recommendation §50: “All Agencies and joint undertakings should systematically annex a
standardised template regarding the publication of their final annual accounts which shall include the
data presented in their reports on the implementation of the budget and in their reports on the
budgetary and financial management. [The European Parliament] recommends that all Agencies and
joint undertakings provide this information in a comprehensive, friendly accessible and transparent
manner (e.g., Excel files and/or CSV files), in order to ease the comparison between their budgetary
executions, and thus enabling Parliament and the public to comprehensively compare their expenses”.
Do you currently publish
your final accounts and
budgetary reports in an
accessible and
transparent manner?
42%
58%
Agency response: All Agencies confirm that they publish their final
accounts and reports on budgetary and financial management in a
comprehensive, friendly, and transparent manner. This is done in
their Annual Activity Reports as well as on their websites.
With regards the data format used, many Agencies use *.PDF which
is not easily exported in a structured way to other formats for other
uses such as those needed by the CONT Secretariat. The Agencies will
devote further efforts to improve the way information is presented to
the discharge authority.
Yes
No*
3. Conclusions
Based on the survey results it can be concluded that the Agencies are well advanced in terms of
implementation of the recommendations put forward by the European Parliament in the framework
of the 2012 discharge procedure. Overall, the results indicate that the EU Agencies have followed-up
to the recommendations of the EP Resolution not only within the current legal framework but also
through the development and implementation of specific policies that go beyond the legal
requirements. This is particularly true in the areas of: cooperation amongst Agencies; improvement
of administrative processes; prevention of conflicts of interest; introduction of policies and practices
to promote awareness of gender issues and equality, where the EU Agencies Network has been very
active in discussing and sharing best practice in recent years.
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