Report on the annual accounts of Eurojust for the financial year 2007 together with Eurojust's replies
Date: 2008-09-25
Institutions: European Court of Auditors
Subjects: Eurojust, European Court of Auditors, administration of the Institutions, financial control, implementation of the budget, powers of the institutions (EU), report

C 311/142

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

5.12.2008

on the annual accounts of Eurojust for the financial year 2007 together
with Eurojust’s replies

REPORT

(2008/C 311/21)

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

OBSERVATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Paragraph

1-2

3-6

7-9

Tables 1 to 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Eurojust’s replies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page

143

143

143

145

148

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INTRODUCTION

1.
Eurojust was set up by Council Decision 2002/187/JHA (1)
with a view to stepping up the fight against serious organised
crime. Its objective is to improve the coordination of investiga-
tions and prosecutions covering the territories of several Member
States of the European Union, as well as that of non-member
States.

Legality and regularity of the underlying transactions

The transactions underlying Eurojust’s annual accounts, taken
as a whole, are legal and regular.

The observations which follow do not call the Court’s State-
ment into question.

2.
Table 1 summarises Eurojust’s competences and activities.
Key data taken from the financial statements drawn up by Euro-
just for the financial year 2007 are presented in Tables 2, 3 and 4
for information purposes.

OBSERVATIONS

STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE

3.
This Statement is addressed to the European Parliament
and the Council pursuant to Article 36 of Council Decision
2002/187/JHA.

4.
Eurojust’s accounts for the financial year ended 31 Decem-
ber 2007 (2) were drawn up by its Administrative Director, pur-
suant to Article 36 of Council Decision 2002/187/JHA, and sent
to the Court, which is required to give a Statement of Assurance
on their reliability and on the legality and regularity of the under-
lying transactions.

5.
The Court conducted its audit in accordance with the IFAC
and ISSAI (3) International Auditing Standards and Codes of Eth-
ics, in so far as these are applicable in the European Community
context. The audit was planned and performed to obtain reason-
able assurance that the accounts are reliable and that the under-
lying transactions are legal and regular.

The Court has thus obtained a reasonable basis for the

6.
Statement set out below:

Reliability of the accounts

Eurojust’s accounts for the financial year ended 31 Decem-
ber 2007 are, in all material respects, reliable.

7.
Eurojust’s total budget for 2007 was 18,9 million euro, as
compared with 14,7 million euro the previous year. 18,0 million
euro of appropriations were committed, 5,2 million euro of
which were carried over. Most of the carry-overs (4,1 mil-
lion euro) concerned administrative (Title II) and operating activi-
ties (Title III) expenditure. Such high levels of carry-overs were at
odds with the principle of annuality and suggest weaknesses in
the programming and the monitoring of Eurojust’s activities.

8.
Following observations made by the Court in previous
years (4), Eurojust centralised the management of its procurement
procedures in a specialised unit to improve the quality of their
implementation. However, due to implementation difficulties
with this new system, Eurojust extended existing contracts in a
manner contrary to the rules. Most of the contracts concerned are
framework contracts and their expiry dates have been known for
a long time, since 2002 in one case. The authorising officer
should put in place an effective plan for managing procurement
procedures.

9.
The number of posts authorised by the establishment plan
for 2007 was 147, as compared with 112 for 2006. As at the end
of 2006 only 87 posts were filled, which would have meant
recruiting at least 60 staff during 2007 (5). At the end of 2007
only 95 posts were filled. This situation shows shortcomings in
the recruitment planning. As the forecast budgetary expenditure
for temporary staff is based on an overestimate of the number of
staff, the corresponding budgetary article is used as a reserve to
cover increased expenditure for employment-agency staff. Dur-
ing 2007 the budget for employment-agency staff increased by
595 000 euro from its initial budget of 662 000 euro (90 %).

(1) Decision of 28 February 2002 setting up Eurojust (OJ L 63, 6.3.2002,

p. 1).

(2) These accounts were drawn up on 30 June 2008 and received by the

Court on 4 July 2008.

(4) E.g. see paragraph 8 of the 2006 annual report (OJ C 309, 19.12.2007,
p. 112) and paragraph 11 of the 2005 annual report (OJ C 312,
19.12.2006, p. 69).

(3) International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and International Stan-

(5) Without taking into account the departure for various reasons of staff

dards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAI).

already recruited (14 staff left Eurojust in 2007).

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Official Journal of the European Union

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This report was adopted by the Court of Auditors in Luxembourg at
24 and 25 September 2008.

its meeting of

For the Court of Auditors
Vítor Manuel da SILVA CALDEIRA
President

Areas of competence deriving from
the Treaty on European Union

Competences of Eurojust as defined in Council Decision 2002/187/JHA

Governance

Table 1

Eurojust (The Hague) 2007

Third pillar body created by
Council Decision.

Objectives

Tasks

Article 3

Articles 5, 6 and 7

Eurojust Decision

Eurojust Decision

— To stimulate and improve
the coordination, between
the competent national
authorities of the Member
investigations
States, of
and prosecutions.

organise

To
cooperation
between the various national
legal systems, Eurojust acts:

— through its national mem-

bers; or

— as a College.

1. The College is responsible
for the organisation and opera-
tion of Eurojust.

2. The College is composed of
national members who are
seconded by each MemberState
in accordance with its legal sys-
tem and who are prosecutors,
judges or police officers of
equivalent competence.

3. The College elects its Presi-
dent from among the national
members.

The Union’s objective is to pro-
vide citizens with a high level of
safety within an area of freedom,
security and justice.

through

Eurojust

The Council encourages coopera-
tion
by
enabling it to facilitate proper
coordination between the Mem-
ber States’ national prosecuting
authorities.

(Extracts from Articles 29 and 31)

drug-trafficking,

Eurojust’s main areas of respon-
sibility are the same as Europol’s,
that is, the fight against terror-
ism, organised crime, in particu-
lar
illegal
immigration, illicit vehicle traf-
trafficking in human
ficking,
beings,
counterfeiting of
the
money, trafficking in radioactive
substances, computer crime, acts
detrimental to the Union’s finan-
cial
and money-
laundering.

interests

Source:

Information supplied by Eurojust.

— To improve cooperation,
in particular by facilitating
the exchange of informa-
legal assis-
tion, mutual
tance
the
and
implementation of extra-
dition requests.

— To support the competent
authorities of the Member
States in order to render
their
investigations and
prosecutions more effec-
tive.

— To provide support with
procedures
involving a
MemberState and a non-
memberState.

— To provide support with
involving a
the

procedures
MemberState
Community.

and

If the competent authorities of
the MemberState
concerned
decide not to respond to the
requests which Eurojust has
issued as a College, they shall
inform Eurojust of the reasons
for their decision.

4. The Joint Supervisory
Body checks the processing of
personal data.

5. The
Director
is
appointed by the College.

Administrative
unanimously

6. External audit

Court of Auditors.

7. Discharge authority

Parliament acting on a recom-
mendation by the Council.

.

.

5
1
2
2
0
0
8

Resources made available to Eurojust in
2007
(Data for 2006)

Products and services supplied in 2007
(Data for 2006)

Final budget:

Number of meetings: 91 (89)

18,9 million euro (14,7 million euro)

Standard cases: 236

Staff at 31 December 2007:

Complex cases: 849

147 (112) posts listed in the estab-
lishment plan; posts occupied: 98
(93) + 32 (21) other positions: (six
contract
seconded
national experts, 22 employment-
agency staff)

staff,

four

Total number of cases: 1 085 (771)

Fraud: 744 (175)

Drug trafficking: 207 (170)

Total staff: 179 (133)

Terrorism: 23 (44)

Assigned to the following duties:

Murder: 80 (59)

Operational tasks: 95 (71)

Trafficking in human beings: 71 (32)

Administrative tasks: 65 (51)

Combined tasks: 19 (12)

E
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Eurojust — Implementation of the budget for the financial year 2007

Table 2

Source of revenue

Revenue

Revenue entered in the
final budget for the
financial year

Revenue collected

Allocation of expenditure

Expenditure

Final budget appropriations

(1 000 euro)

Appropriations carried over from
previous financial year(s)

entered

committed

paid

carried
over

cancelled

available

paid

cancelled

Community subsidies

18 414

18 414

Other subsidies

—

54

Title I
Staff

Title II
Administration

Title III
Operating activities

Assigned revenue
(Agis)

Total

527

18 941

316

18 784

Assigned revenue (Agis)

527

415

107

420

Total

18 941

17 992

13 495

5 184

NB: Any discrepancies in totals are due to the effects of rounding.
Source:

Information supplied by Eurojust — this table summarises the data supplied by Eurojust in its financial statements.

8 608

8 435

7 830

605

173

189

4 107

4 038

2 511

1 558

5 699

5 104

3 047

2 601

1 081

1 320

129

949

960

60

132

360

—

552

—

—

2 590

2 038

38

51

—

262

C
3
1
1
/
1
4
6

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.

5
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2
2
0
0
8

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Eurojust — Economic outturn account for the financial years 2007 and 2006

Table 3

(1 000 euro)

2007

2006

Operating revenue

Community subsidies

Other revenue

Operating expenditure

Staff expenditure

Fixed-asset-related expenditure

Other administrative expenditure

Operational expenditure

17 546

55

Total (a)

17 601

6 484

803

5 010

4 125

16 422

1 179

0

1

– 1

1 178

12 858

973

13 831

6 581

674

2 202

3 297

12 754

1 077

0

0

0

1 077

Surplus/(deficit) from operating activities (c = a – b)

Total (b)

Financial operations revenue (e)

Financial operations expenditure (f)

Surplus/(deficit) from non-operating activities (g = e – f)

Economic result for the year (h = c + g)

Source: Data supplied by Eurojust. This table summarises the data provided by Eurojust in its annual accounts: these accounts are drawn up

on an accrual basis.

Table 4

Eurojust — Balance sheet at 31 December 2007 and 2006

(1 000 euro)

2007

2006

Non-current assets

Intangible fixed assets

Tangible fixed assets

Long-term receivables

Current assets

Short-term receivables

Cash and cash equivalents

Current liabilities

Provision for risks and charges

Accounts payable

Reserve

Accumulated surplus/deficit

Economic result for the year

598

1 816

1

180

5 887

8 482

137

2 712

2 849

5 633

4 455

1 178

5 633

Total assets

Total liabilities

Net assets

Net capital

556

1 673

1

372

4 749

7 351

134

2 762

2 896

4 455

3 378

1 077

4 455

Source: Data supplied by Eurojust. This table summarises the data provided by Eurojust in its annual accounts: these accounts are drawn up

on an accrual basis.

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EUROJUST’S REPLIES

Due to the lack of appropriate staff to manage them, funds were reallocated to the Title II and III in
7.
order to best use the budget. It resulted in commitments being prepared late. The difficulties linked to the
implementation of the new procurement system (see point 2) has also played a role. Eurojust has taken cor-
rective actions to fill its deficit of staff. It has also introduced a carry over reduction strategy for 2008.

Eurojust is fully aware of this need. As a result, a general Procurement Planning for the year 2008 has
8.
already been defined. Moreover, on the basis of the difficulties encountered, a new Decision on the organisa-
tion of Procurement and related tasks, has been taken to ensure more efficient planning and management of
procurement procedures. In the meantime, all of the contracts mentioned by the Court have now been
re-tendered in conformity with the rules.

9.
Eurojust is conscious of the need to fulfil the establishment plan as soon as possible and has increased
its capacity of recruitment in order to do so. In 2007, the recruitment policy of Eurojust was reviewed which
had as a consequence an unforeseen delay in recruitment and the need to hire more employment-agency staff
as a consequence. In 2008, Eurojust aims to reduce the use of this staff and to fullfill its establishment plan.