1999/428/EC: Decision of the European Parliament of 4 May 1999 giving discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 1997 - Section IV: Court of Justice - Section V: Court of Auditors - Section VI, Part B: Committee of the Regions
Date: 1999-05-04
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: Court of Justice of the European Union, European Committee of the Regions, European Parliament, administrative court, budgetary discharge, implementation of the budget

3. 7. 1999

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

L 168/19

DECISION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

of 4 May 1999

giving discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial
year 1997  Section IV: Court of Justice  Section V: Court of Auditors 
Section VI, Part B: Committee of the Regions

(1999/428/EC)

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT,

 Having regard to Article 272(10) of the EC Treaty,

 Having regard to Article 22(2) and (3) of the Financial

Regulation,

 Having regard to the revenue and expenditure account
and the balance sheet for the 1997 financial year
(SEC(98)0521  C4-0353/98),

 Having regard to the report of the Committee on

Budgetary Control (A4-0199/99),

Court of Justice

1. Notes the significant savings obtained by the conclu-
sion of a supplementary agreement to the leasing
agreement concerning the annexes to the Court
building, following the early payment of ECU 50
million during the previous financial year;

2. Notes the undertaking by the Luxembourg Govern-
ment to bear the cost of rehousing the occupants of
the Court building in a replacement office block for
the duration of the restoration and extension work on
the Court building, and the cost of removals to the
replacement building and of the subsequent return to
the Court building when work is completed;

3. Repeats its call on the Court of Justice to improve its
financial forecasting (Article 2 7 0) and the manage-
ment of its budgetary resources (Item 1 4 1 0);

4. Disapproves of

the use for the purchase of cars,
following an article-to-article transfer, of appropri-
intended for computer equipment, which
ations
shows
inefficient programming of work in the
drafting of the budget;

Court of Auditors

5. Recalls that the total number of new posts authorised
in 1997 and 1998 is intended to guarantee stability in
the establishment plan up to and including the year
2001;

6. Considers that certain activities (Chapter 15),

for
which the appropriations allocated were judged insuf-
ficient by the Court of Auditors, could have benefited
from the large volume of funds arising partly as a
result of the favourable movement in the ecu-Luxem-
bourg franc conversion rate, thus helping to reduce
the amount of appropriations cancelled;

Committee of the Regions

the activities of

7. Expresses its displeasure at the haphazard program-
ming of
the
Regions, which necessitated a major article-to-article
transfer at the very beginning of the 1997 financial
year;

the Committee of

8. Calls on the Committee of the Regions to improve
significantly the quality of its budgetary forecasting to
enable optimum use to be made of the financial
resources allocated to it by the budgetary authority;

9. Recalls its request to the Court of Auditors to investi-
gate the appropriateness and effectiveness of
the
measures taken by the Committee of the Regions, to
ensure that the irregularities identified in the 1996
annual report do not recur; requests the Court of
Auditors to submit a report on this matter by 30
September 1999;

10. Gives discharge to the Registrar of

the Court of
Justice and the Secretaries-General of the Court of
Auditors and the Committee of
the Regions in
respect of the implementation of their budgets for the
1997 financial year;

11. Instructs its President to forward this decision to the
Institutions and the advisory body concerned and to
arrange for its publication in the Official Journal (L
series).

The Secretary-General

The President

Julian PRIESTLEY

José María GIL-ROBLES