Luxembourg, 24 October 2024
- All 43 EU agencies get a clean bill of health for good accounts and revenue in 2023
- Four agencies are given a yellow card for their spending
- Financing models for agencies collecting their own revenue need more clarity and transparency
While the majority of the 43 EU agencies managed their finances well in 2023, according to the annual audit report issued today by the European Court of Auditors (ECA), the institution has not issued a clean opinion to four agencies about how they spent EU money. The auditors note that public procurement procedures continue to be the main source of irregularities. They identified areas for improvement at 34 agencies.
The 43 EU agencies, located in 23 member states, deal with technical, scientific, or regulatory tasks, or implement operational spending programmes. EU agencies employ over 16 000 people, almost one fifth of all EU staff. Most agencies are financed almost entirely by the EU budget. The others are partly or fully financed by fees and charges from the public- and private-sector entities that their activities cover.
“The financial management of the EU agencies is generally good, but we keep finding public procurement errors”, said François-Roger Cazala, the ECA Member responsible for the annual audit of the EU agencies. “We believe that the procedures used to award and implement contracts must be improved, ensuring full compliance with the applicable rules, so that they achieve the best possible value for money.”
39 out of 43 agencies received a clean audit opinion for their payments in 2023. The four that did not (compared to four in 2022, and one in 2021) are the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), the European Labour Authority (ELA), the Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), and the Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (eu-LISA). In the case of the EIT, the reason for the qualified opinion was the estimated level of errors in the grants it managed. For the remaining three, the qualification was based on irregularities found in procurement procedures or contract implementation. These agencies should pay particular attention to the rules laid down in the Financial Regulation, stress the auditors.
Furthermore, the auditors draw attention to procedural weaknesses in management and control systems, such as a lack of adequate checks before operations are authorised, shortcomings in delegation powers, or the segregation of duties. Some agencies should also improve their compliance with the legal deadlines for payments. Although the total amount paid in late-payment interest was low, the frequency of late payments found in some agencies could be detrimental to their reputation.
This year, the auditors supplemented their regular audit work with an analysis of the financing models of the 12 EU agencies which collect their own revenue, either in addition to the subsidies received from the EU budget (ACER, EASA, EBA, ECHA, EIOPA, EMA, ERA, and ESMA) or as their sole source of financing (CdT, CPVO, EUIPO and SRB – here all EU agencies and bodies’ acronyms and full names).
The total amount of own revenue collected by EU agencies – excluding contributions to the Single Resolution Fund collected by the EU’s Single Resolution Board – was €1.1 billion in 2023, which is around a quarter of the combined budget of all 43 EU agencies for that year. The revenue streams vary (e.g. certificates, authorisations, contributions, registration fees and intellectual property rights), and the way they are set differs between agencies. Not all the agencies concerned were able to clearly identify and communicate both transparently and separately the costs of activities which generate own revenue and those funded from the EU budget. These costs are important in order to improve decision-making, and especially to ensure that fees are set at levels that do not lead to significant deficits or surpluses. The auditors recommend that each agency that collects its own revenue disclose the relevant information in an easy-to-understand way in its final annual accounts, consolidated annual activity report, and single programming document in the interests of full clarity and transparency.
Background information
For more information on the auditors’ findings for all agencies, please see the annual report on the EU agencies available on the ECA website.
Read the ECA report
Related links
Source – ECA