Report on the annual accounts of the European Agency for Reconstruction for the financial year 2008, together with the Agency’s replies
Date: 2009-10-08
Institutions: European Court of Auditors
Subjects: European Agency for Reconstruction, European Court of Auditors, administration of the Institutions, financial control, implementation of the budget, powers of the institutions (EU), report








C_2009304EN.01004301.xml










15.12.2009   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 304/43






REPORT

on the annual accounts of the European Agency for Reconstruction for the financial year 2008, together with the Agency’s replies
2009/C 304/09

CONTENTS








 



Paragraph




Page





INTRODUCTION…


1-2


44




STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE…


3-12


44




COMMENTS ON THE BUDGETARY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT…


13


45




OTHER MATTERS…


14


45




Table…


46





The Agency’s replies…


48





INTRODUCTION







1.


The European Agency for Reconstruction (hereinafter ‘the Agency’), located in Thessaloniki, was established by Council Regulation (EC) No 1628/96 (1), as last amended by Council Regulation (EC) No 1756/2006 of 28 November 2006 (2). When it was set up in 2000, the Agency was responsible for managing the EU’s aid programmes in Kosovo. Its mandate was later extended to Serbia and Montenegro and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The Agency’s head office was in Thessaloniki and it had operational centres in Belgrade, Podgorica, Pristina and Skopje. It implemented programmes to foster institution- building and good governance, to promote the development of a market economy and essential infrastructure and to consolidate civil society (3). Its mandate ended on 31 December 2008. The ongoing programmes were transferred to the Commission during the year (4). After 31 December 2008 the Agency’s remaining assets became the property of the Commission (5).










2.


The Agency’s 2008 budget amounted to 235 million euro compared with 250,2 million euro the previous year. For the 2008, the Agency had no appropriations for operational activities (title III); its main activities consisted of completing the implementation of programmes launched in preceding years. All the operational activities delegated by the Commission to the Agency were taken back by the Commission at the end of September and the administrative activities of the Agency ceased completely at the year end.






STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE









3.



Pursuant to the provisions of Article 248 of the Treaty the Court has audited the annual accounts (6) of the Agency, which comprise the ‘financial statements’ (7) and the ‘reports on implementation of the budget’ (8) for the financial year ended 31 December 2008 and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying those accounts.











4.



This Statement of Assurance is addressed to the European Parliament and the Council in accordance with Article 185(2) of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 (9).






The Director’s responsibility









5.



As authorising officer, the Director implements the revenue and expenditure of the budget in accordance with the financial rules of the Agency under his own responsibility and within the limits of authorised appropriations (10). The Director is responsible for putting in place (11) the organisational structure and the internal management and control systems and procedures relevant for drawing up final accounts (12) that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and for ensuring that the transactions underlying those accounts are legal and regular.






The Court’s responsibility









6.



The Court’s responsibility is to provide, on the basis of its audit, a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts of the Agency and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them.











7.



The Court conducted its audit in accordance with the IFAC and ISSAI (13) International Auditing Standards and Codes of Ethics. Those standards require that the Court complies with ethical requirements and plans and performs the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the accounts are free from material misstatement and whether the underlying transactions are legal and regular.











8.



The Court’s audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the accounts. The procedures selected depend on its audit judgement including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the accounts or of illegal or irregular transactions, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments internal control relevant to the entity’s preparation and presentation of accounts is considered in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances. The Court’s audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and, the reasonableness of accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the accounts.











9.



The Court believes that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for the opinions set out below.







Opinion on the reliability of the accounts










10.



In the Court’s opinion, the Agency’s Annual Accounts (14) present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2008 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation.







Opinion on the legality and the regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts










11.



In the Court’s opinion, the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Agency for the financial year ended 31 December 2008 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.










12.


The comments which follow do not call the Court’s opinions into question.





COMMENTS ON THE BUDGETARY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT







13.


A grant of 1 399 132 euro was directly awarded to an international organisation. None of the formal conditions required for a direct grant award was fulfilled in this case and it is thus irregular. The advance payment linked to this grant was 532 594 euro.





OTHER MATTERS







14.


Five projects audited (15) concerned cross-border cooperation. These projects were first assessed by local assessors and then presented to an Evaluation Committee which takes the decision to select them or not. For the audited projects, there was no documentation or evidence on the reasons why the issues raised by the assessors (16) concerning the justification of the requested budget, the identification of the beneficiaries, the sustainability of the projects themselves and the conformity of the objectives of the project were not taken into account by the Evaluation Committee. Under these circumstances, the relevance of these projects in terms of sound financial management was questionable.





This report was adopted by the Court of Auditors in Luxembourg at its meeting of 8 October 2009.


For the Court of Auditors

Vítor Manuel da SILVA CALDEIRA


President





Table


European Agency for Reconstruction (Thessaloniki)












Areas of Community competence deriving from the Treaty


Competences of the Agency as defined in Council Regulation (EC) No 2667/2000 of 5 December 2000


Governance


Resources available to the Agency in 2008

(Data for 2007)



Activities and services provided in 2008




The Community shall carry out, within its spheres of competence, economic, financial and technical cooperation measures with third countries. Such measures must be complementary to those carried out by the Member States and consistent with the development policy of the Community.

(Article 181a)




Objectives

To provide EU assistance:






(i)


for reconstruction and the return of refugees and displaced persons;










(ii)


to promote sound administration, stronger institutions and the rule of law;










(iii)


to support the development of a market economy and investment in essential physical infrastructure and environmental measures;










(iv)


to support social development and consolidate civil society.







Application

The Agency manages the principal aid programmes in, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia and in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Beneficiaries may include States, bodies under UN administration, federated regional and local bodies, public and semi-public bodies, both sides of industry, business support organisations, cooperatives, mutual companies, charities, foundations and NGOs.



Tasks







—


To advise the Commission of priority needs,










—


to devise programmes for reconstruction and the return of refugees and displaced persons,










—


to take every possible step to implement EU assistance.







1 —   Governing Board

Comprises one representative from each Member State, two representatives from the Commission and an observer from the European Investment Bank.

2 —   Director

Appointed by the Governing Board on a proposal from the Commission. Operational Centres in Belgrade, Pristina, Podgorica and Skopje with a high level of management autonomy.

3 —   External control

Court of Auditors.

4 —   Discharge Authority

The Parliament following a recommendation from the Council.



Budget

236,5 million euro

(250,2 million euro)


Staff at 31 December 2008

93 (108)
TA posts listed in the establishment plan
TA posts occupied: 61 (83)

Other posts:






 



Local staff: 158 (165) posts of which 32 (154) were occupied.










 



Contract staff: 28 (29) posts of which 19 (27) were occupied.










 



Total staff: 112 (264)





Responsible for
Operational tasks: 59 (163)

Administrative tasks: 53 (101)









 



KOSOVO: (a) Multisectorial returns empowerment of Roma communities and social economic development assistance to minority communities; (b) Support for civil society and the media; (c) Institutional and policy support for the ministries of Justice and Internal Affairs; (d) Strengthening of border management bodies and construction of border crossing facilities; (e) Capacity building of the Agency for European Integration; (f) Support of decentralisation; (g) Drafting of public procurement law, internal audit strategy; (h) Assistance to the Ministry of Trade and Industry on SME development, investment promotion, metrology and direct assistance to small-scale businesses for marginalised groups; (i) Support for the Statistical Office of Kosovo; (j) Support for the Ministry of Agriculture; (k) Sustainable forest management; (l) Livestock breeding; (m) Development of food safety control systems; (n) Support for the energy sector including transmission network, support for the ministry of energy, support for the Kosovo Electric Company, support for the Energy Regulatory Office, support for the supply of coal, revenue collection, environmental actions for coal mines; (o) Environmental upgrades including support for water and waste utilities and construction of a water treatment plant; (p) Vocational Education Training Programme; (q) Support for the transport sector with a planning and strategy for a multimodal transport.










 



SERBIA: (a) Draft laws in public administration reform; (b) Supply of equipment to border police; (c) Support for juvenile detention centres; (d) Introduction of capitation payment in State primary health care facilities; (e) Support for privatisation; (f) Training support for enterprises; (g) Support for implementation of the EIB education sector loan; (h) Economic development programmes for poorest municipalities; (i) Upgrading of the existing border crossing infrastructure and facilities at Presevo; (j) Renovation of municipal infrastructure; (k) Reform of the statistics office; (l) Support for facilitation of FDIs; (m) Support for vulnerable groups including refugees and displaced people; (n) District heating renovation and modernisation; (o) Installation of a new ash transport and disposal scheme for the Nikola Tesla B thermal power plant.










 



MONTENEGRO: (a) Support for refugee and IDP integration; (b) Strengthening environmental management through legislative reform and refurbishment of waste water treatment plants in Podgorica and in coastal cities; (c) Upgrading road infrastructure in coastal areas; (d) Assisting public administration reform; (e) Electricity utility unbundling/restructuring, energy efficiency strategy; (f) Providing management expertise to companies; (g) Police reform; (h) Prison reform; (i) Creating animal identification and registration system; (j) Fishery resource management; (k) Assisting in social inclusion reforms through support for civil society organisations.










 



FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA: (a) Twinning support on money laundering, corruption and organised crime, statistics, air quality, financial control; (b) Completing the establishment of the National Animal Identification System; (c) Fostering the performance of SMEs and the development of a Human Resource Development Fund; (d) Helping civil society organisations and municipalities to promote economic development across borders with the EU Member States; (e) Support for the elimination of industrial hotspots, municipal waste water management and healthcare risk waste management; (f) Construction of administrative headquarters to house the association of municipalities; (g) Support for the programming of the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance and its tendering; (h) Support for implementation of professional standards in prison administrations; (i) Elaborating a National Transport Strategy.




The Agency terminated all its activities at 31.12.2008 after transferring all CARDS programmes to the Commission.





Source: Information supplied by the Agency.






THE AGENCY’S REPLIES






13.


Due to the cancellation of a project by the Serbian authorities, the Agency was confronted with the necessity to reallocate rapidly the funds made available. In view not to leave these funds unused, with the agreement of the Serbian authorities, it was decided to fund a project with Unicef in line with the objectives of the EC Programme for Serbia. Moreover, amongst the organisations working in the field of children’s health Unicef was the best prepared as it had just concluded an evaluation of the de-institutionalisation process in this field and thus the most able to present rapidly a project of quality.










14.


According to the rules in force, the Evaluation Committee which included the Agency and the EC Delegation was not bound by the opinion of the assessors and in some cases indeed disagreed with their opinion. In these five cases, the EAR and the EC Delegation considered that the opinion of the assessors was unfounded.







(1)  OJ L 204, 14.8.1996, p. 1.

(2)  OJ L 332, 30.11.2006, p. 18.

(3)  The Table summarises the agency’s competences and activities. It is presented for information purposes.

(4)  Commission Decision PH/2008/657 of 24.4.2008.

(5)  Memorandum of Understanding between the Commission and the European Agency for Reconstruction of 17.12.2008.

(6)  These accounts are accompanied by a report on the budgetary and financial management during the year which gives inter alia an account of the rate of implementation of the appropriations with summary information on the transfers of appropriations among the various budget items.

(7)  The financial statements include the balance sheet and the economic outturn account, the cash-flow table, the statement of changes in capital and the annex to the financial statements which includes the description of the significant accounting policies and other explanatory information.

(8)  The budget implementation reports comprise the budget outturn account and its annex.

(9)  OJ L 248, 16.9.2002, p. 1.

(10)  Article 33 of Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002 of 23 December 2002 (OJ L 357, 31.12.2002, p. 72).

(11)  Article 38 of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002.

(12)  The rules concerning the presentation of the accounts and accounting by the Agencies are laid down in chapter 1 of Title VII of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002 as last amended by Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 652/2008 of 9 July 2008 (OJ L 181, 10.7.2008, p. 23) and are integrated as such in the Financial Regulation of the Agency.

(13)  International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAI).

(14)  The Final Annual Accounts were drawn up in February 2009 and received by the Court on 9 March 2009. The Final Annual Accounts, consolidated with those of the Commission are published in the Official Journal of the European Union by 15 November of the following year. These can be found on the following website http://eca.europa.eu

(15)  Total value: 528 000 euro.

(16)  The assessors are designated by the joint management structures put in place to manage the cross-border programmes.