European Council spending ‘should not be signed off’, say MEPs

23 Sep 14

A special committee of MEPs, charged with overseeing the implementation of the European Union’s budget, has today warned the European Parliament not to sign off spending by the European Council and the Council of Ministers for 2012.

By Judith Ugwumadu | 23 September 2014

The Budgetary Control Committee said both councils had repeatedly failed to cooperate with its efforts to check the accounts.

Hungarian MEP Tamás Deutsch, the rapporteur in charge of the discharge of the council and the European Council said: ‘Our decision was taken not because of irregular management of resources from the council’s side but because it refused to cooperate with Parliament in the discharge procedure.

‘The discharge will not be granted until the council accepts the Parliament’s right to exercise its control powers to their full extent.’

According to the committee, Parliament last postponed its approval of the Council’s books on April 3, to give it more time to comply with the account vetting rules aimed at enabling taxpayers to see how EU institutions spend their funds.

During that month Parliament ‘inquired in vain’ about the costs of the European Council’s new Europa building, the largely rebuilt Residence Palace building, and ‘administrative modernisation’ work under way at the council, the committee said.

But as the council failed to reply either to the (earlier) recommendations of the European Court of Justice or to the European Parliament, the committee proposed that Parliament as a whole ‘should refrain from granting the institutions a discharge’.

The council and the European Council have failed each annual discharge test since 2011, the committed added.

As a result, Deutsch called on Parliament and the council to start an open dialogue on this matter, ‘which would certainly be a positive sign to the citizens of the European Union’.

Meanwhile, the committee said Parliament should clear any spending by the Riga-based Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications.

BEREC’s budget management, procurement and recruitment shortcomings, highlighted in April this year, have now been corrected, said the committee and it should be granted a budget discharge.