STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE 6. Pursuant to the provisions of Article 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Court has audited: (a) the annual accounts of the ECSEL Joint Undertaking, which comprise the financial statements (4) and the reports on the implementation of the budget (5) for the period 27 June to 31 December 2014, and (b) the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying those accounts. The management’s responsibility 7. In accordance with Articles 16 and 22 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 110/2014 (6), the management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. (a) The management’s responsibilities in respect of the Joint Undertaking's annual accounts include designing, implementing and maintaining an internal control system relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, selecting and applying appropriate accounting policies on the basis of the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer (7), and making accounting estimates that are reasonable in the circumstances. The Director approves the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking after its accounting officer has prepared them on the basis of all available information and established a note to accompany the accounts in which he declares, inter alia, that he has reasonable assurance that they present a true and fair view of the financial position of the Joint Undertaking in all material respects. (b) The management’s responsibilities in respect of the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions and compliance with the principle of sound financial management consist of designing, implementing and maintaining an effective and efficient internal control system comprising adequate supervision and appropriate measures to prevent irregularities and fraud and, if necessary, legal proceedings to recover funds wrongly paid or used. The auditor’s responsibility 8. The Court’s responsibility is, on the basis of its audit, to provide the European Parliament and the Council (8) with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. The Court conducts its audit in accordance with the IFAC International Standards on Auditing and Codes of Ethics and the INTOSAI International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions. These standards require the Court to plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance as to whether the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking are free from material misstatement and the underlying transactions are legal and regular. 9. The audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgement, which is based on an assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the accounts and material non-compliance by the underlying transactions with the requirements in the legal framework of the European Union, whether due to fraud or error. In assessing these risks, the auditor considers any internal controls relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of the accounts, as well as the supervisory and control systems that are implemented to ensure the legality and regularity of underlying transactions, and designs audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances. The audit also entails evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies, the reasonableness of accounting estimates and the overall presentation of the accounts. 10. The Court considers that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for its statement of assurance. Opinion on the reliability of the accounts 11. In the Court’s opinion, the Joint Undertaking’s accounts for the period 27 June to 31 December 2014 present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position as at 31 December 2014 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the period then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its financial rules and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer. Basis for a qualified opinion on the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions 12. ECSEL has taken over the projects of the ARTEMIS and ENIAC Joint Undertakings. The payments made under these projects by ECSEL Joint Undertaking from 27 June to 31 December 2014 against certificates of acceptance of costs issued by the national funding authorities (NFAs) of the Member States amounted to 12,6 million euro, which represents 48 % of the total payments made by the Joint Undertaking. 13. ARTEMIS and ENIAC Joint Undertakings had concluded administrative agreements with the NFAs of the Member States, which continue to apply after the merger of the ARTEMIS and ENIAC Joint Undertakings into ECSEL Joint Undertaking. These arrangements provide that the ex post audits of these payments are delegated to the NFAs that will perform audits on behalf of the Joint Undertaking. The ARTEMIS and ENIAC Joint Undertakings’ ex post audit strategy relied heavily on the NFAs to audit project cost claims (9). 14. Although the audit of project cost claims has been delegated to the NFAs, the administrative agreements signed with the NFAs do not include practical arrangements for ex post audits. 15. The audit reports received from the NFAs covered approximately 61 % (as of April 2015) of the costs related to completed projects. However the ECSEL Joint Undertaking did not assess the quality of these audits. The Court performed an assessment of the audit strategies, including audit reports, of three NFAs which indicated that the methodologies used by the NFAs do not allow the ECSEL Joint Undertaking to calculate a reliable weighted error rate nor a residual error rate on the projects launched under ARTEMIS and ENIAC Joint Undertakings. Therefore it is not possible to conclude whether ex post audits for ARTEMIS and ENIAC projects are functioning effectively and whether this key control provides sufficient assurance as to the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. Qualified opinion on the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts 16. In the Court’s opinion, except for the possible effects of the matter described in the basis for a qualified opinion in paragraphs 12 to 15, the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking for the financial year ended 31 December 2014 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.