Report on the accounts drawn up by the Secretary-General of the Convention on the future of the European Union for the financial year ended 31 December 2003, together with the Secretary-General of the Convention’s comments
Date: 2004-05-13
Institutions: European Court of Auditors
Subjects: European Union, European convention, audit, financial management, fund (EU), report

14.6.2004

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Official Journal of the European Union

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I

(Information)

COURT OF AUDITORS

REPORT

on the accounts drawn up by the Secretary‐General of the Convention on
the future of the European Union for the financial year ended
31 December 2003, together with the Secretary‐General of the
Convention’s comments

(2004/C 157/01)

1.
This audit report concerns the Fund for the financing of the
Convention on the future of the European Union, set up by Deci‐
sion 2002/176/EU of 21 February 2002 of the Representatives of
the Governments of the Member States, meeting within the Coun‐
cil (1). By a further Decision 2002/997/EU of 20 December
2002 (2), the Representatives of the Governments of the Member
States amended Decision 2002/176/EU, extending its validity
from 1 January 2003 until the end of the Convention’s proceed‐
ings, or until 31 December 2003 at the latest.

2.
The Court has examined the financial statements in respect
of the management of the Fund for the financial year ended
31 December 2003. In accordance with Article 13(1) of Decision
2002/176/EU, the budget was implemented under the responsi‐
bility of the Secretary‐General of the Convention. This responsi‐
bility included drawing up and presenting the financial state‐
ments. A summary of the total revenue and expenditure of the
Convention, drawn up by the Court on the basis of the financial
statements of the two years of activity, is presented in Table 1.

Table 1

Summary of the revenue and expenditure of the Convention

21 February 2002 — 31 December 2003

Revenue

Contributions from the signatory institutions

Bank interest received

Expenditure paid and accrued

Title I — Members and staff of the Convention

Title II — Translations and publications

Outturn

Total revenue

Total expenditure

4 000 000

88 524

4 088 524

1 084 777

2 883 372 (1)

3 968 149

120 375

Source: A summary, drawn up by the Court of Auditors, on the basis of the financial statements presented by the Secretary‐General of the Convention.

The amounts are rounded to euro.

(1) This figure includes the amount of 655 368 euro mentioned in paragraph 5 of the report.

(1) OJ L 60, 1.3.2002, p. 56.
(2) OJ L 349, 24.12.2002, p. 34.

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The Court carried out its audit in accordance with its audit‐
3.
ing policies and standards. These have been adapted from gener‐
ally accepted international auditing standards to reflect the Com‐
munity nature of the context within which the Court works. The
Court examined the accounting records and applied the auditing
procedures it deemed necessary in this context. Through this audit
the Court obtained a reasonable basis for the opinion expressed
below.

The Court’s examination enabled it to obtain reasonable
4.
assurance that
the financial year ended
31 December 2003 are reliable, and that the underlying transac‐
tions are, on the whole, legal and regular.

the accounts for

At the end of 2003 certain costs relating to translation and
5.
publication were still outstanding. Considering that 31 Decem‐
ber 2003 was the deadline for closing down the Fund, an amount
of 655 368 euro, resulting from an estimation of the costs to be
settled after this date, was transferred to the General Secretariat of
the Council, which undertook the obligation to settle these costs.
The final outturn of the Convention’s accounts will only be
known when all outstanding liabilities have been settled. This
might result in a modification of the 120 375 euro foreseen to be
paid back to the general budget and divided among the partici‐
pating institutions. The Court will follow up this question when
auditing the Council accounts for the 2004 financial year.

This report was adopted by the Court of Auditors in Luxembourg at its meeting of 13 May 2004.

For the Court of Auditors

Juan Manuel FABRA VALLÉS

President

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THE SECRETARY‐GENERAL OF THE CONVENTION’S COMMENTS

The Secretary‐General has no comments to make on the Court’s observations.