Resolution (EU) 2023/1899 of the European Parliament of 10 May 2023 with observations forming an integral part of the decision on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) for the financial year 2021
Date: 2023-05-10
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, budgetary discharge, financial year, general budget (EU)








L_2023242EN.01034501.xml










29.9.2023   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


L 242/345








            RESOLUTION (EU) 2023/1899 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
         
of 10 May 2023
         
with observations forming an integral part of the decision on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) for the financial year 2021


THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT,







—


having regard to its decision on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction for the financial year 2021,










—


having regard to Rule 100 of and Annex V to its Rules of Procedure,










—


having regard to the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs,










—


having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control (A9-0107/2023),












A.


whereas, according to its statement of revenue and expenditure (1), the final budget of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (the ‘Centre’) for the financial year 2021 was EUR 18 974 791, representing an increase of 5,13 % compared to 2020; whereas the Centre’s budget derives mainly (90 %) from the Union budget;












B.


whereas the Court of Auditors (the ‘Court’), in its report on the Centre’s annual accounts for the financial year 2021 (the ‘Court’s report’), states that it has obtained reasonable assurance that the Centre’s annual accounts are reliable and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular;








Budget and financial management









1.


Notes with appreciation that the budget monitoring efforts during the financial year 2021 resulted in a budget implementation rate of 100 %, the same rate as in 2020; notes that the payment appropriations execution rate was 96,35 %, representing an increase of 1,62 % compared to the previous year; further notes with satisfaction that the implementation rate of payment appropriations carried over from 2020 to 2021 was 98,80 %;





Performance









2.


Notes that the Centre’s performance measurement model identifies a limited number (10) of composite key performance indicators (KPIs), which are used to measure the effectiveness of delivering the desired outputs and the efficiency of using resources allocated, and which are complemented by higher level KPIs that focus on outcomes and impacts; notes that, for the performance indicators, the Centre identified 54 annual targets, of which 47 targets (87 %) were achieved; welcomes, in addition to the performance indicators, the adoption by the Centre of a multi-indicator approach to monitoring; takes notes that, under this approach, monitoring activity centres on five key epidemiological indicators;












3.


Notes that in 2021 most of the Centre’s performance indicators were achieved; observes partial achievement with regard to several metrics, such as the average number of training days per member of staff (target of 3 days, achieved 1,2 days) due to travel restrictions throughout the year or the average time of recruitment processes (target 4 months, achieved 4,5 months) due to an increased number or recruitments taking place in 2021; further notes that some of the performance indicators concerning the efficient implementation of the technical assistance projects with third countries were only partially achieved due to implementation conditions, including COVID-19 pandemic-related constraints;












4.


Welcomes that the Centre’s management board adopted the second Roadmap 2025 as well as the Centre’s new business model that aims to further develop the Centre into a customer-focused and data-driven organisation; notes that these documents will guide the work of the Centre in the second phase of the implementation of the Centre’s Strategy 2025 which started in 2021; highlights that the Centre is a responsible party in numerous key actions of the EU Drugs Action Plan 2021–2025 approved by the Council of the European Union in 2021;












5.


Commends the Centre’s efforts and progresses made in its three areas of work:health, security and business drivers; notes in particular the release in 2021 of the Centre’s first fully digital flagship publication with eight ‘responses miniguides’ addressing key public health challenges in the drugs field, the launch of a new online toolkit aiming to meet targets in certain health areas and the release of special reports on the threats to the Union of emerging drug developments in Afghanistan and Iran, and on the Balkan and southern trafficking routes into the Union; further notes the Centre’s customer-focused approach, its efforts to ensure that timely products and services are delivered and its increased visibility on the online channels;












6.


Welcomes the Centre’s participation in drug related training events and capacity building, managing to transfer its knowledge to over 870 professionals working in the drug field, representing an increase of almost 75 % compared to 2020; further welcomes the launch of the European Drugs Winter School in 2021, to complement the already established European Drugs Summer School;





Staff policy









7.


Notes that, on 31 December 2021, the establishment plan was 96 % implemented, with seven officials and 66 temporary agents appointed out of seven officials and 69 temporary agents authorised under the Union budget (compared to 76 authorised posts in 2021 and in 2020); notes that, in addition, 27 contract agents and one seconded national expert worked for the Centre in 2021; welcomes that, since the end of 2021, the Centre is no longer employing interim staff; welcomes the Centre’s 2021 staff screening exercise and the effective and efficient allocation of its resources with 71,77 % of the Centre’s staff allocated to operational tasks, 18,65 % to administrative support and 9,58 % to neutral operations;












8.


Notes with concern that the Centre reported to have two women (22 %) and seven men (78 %) in its senior management, while it has 20 women (38 %) and 32 men (62 %) in its management board; notes that the staff overall is composed of 29 men (45 %) and 36 women (55 %); recalls the importance of ensuring staff gender balance and calls on the Centre to take this aspect into consideration with regard to future appointments within its senior management; further calls on the Member States to take this into account when nominating their members of the management board; recalls also the importance of ensuring a balanced geographical representation among both the Centre’s management and staff personnel;












9.


Regrets that the Centre has not yet implemented any modules of the SYSPER human resources management system; calls on the Centre to enhance the digitalisation of its staff management system in order to increase its efficiency;





Procurement









10.


Welcomes that, in terms of procurement execution, the 2021 procurement plan was successfully executed by the Centre with 98 negotiated procedures of a total value of EUR 1 556 147; welcomes the fact that the Court did not have remarks about the Centre’s application of public procurement rules;












11.


Notes with appreciation that the Centre uses eTendering, eSubmission and eInvoicing; encourages the Centre to continue its progress towards digitalising its procurement procedures and explore options for starting the implementation and use of the PPMT digital procurement tool;





Prevention and management of conflicts of interest, and transparency









12.


Acknowledges the Centre’s existing measures and ongoing efforts to secure transparency, prevent and manage conflicts of interest, and provide whistleblower protection; welcomes that the Centre published on its website the declarations of interest of its senior management staff, management board members and the external experts who are members of the scientific committee; welcomes that the Centre also published on its website the CVs of the external experts who are members of its scientific committee; notes the Centre’s reply to have published on its website all summaries of the CVs of its management board members and senior management staff; regrets, however, that a summary of only their current professional activities is available on the Centre’s website; calls on the Centre to update their website as to include CVs listing the full professional background of its management board members and senior management staff;












13.


Notes that the existence of a risk of conflict of interest is assessed under the authority of the Centre’s director, and that the management board, as required, adopts the measures aimed at preventing or avoiding a conflict of interest; notes that no case of conflict of interest was reported, investigated or concluded in 2021;





Internal control









14.


Notes that in 2021 the Internal Audit Service (IAS) carried out an audit on the Centre’s internal control system and compliance with rules and procedures regarding the management of the Centre’s human resources; notes that the IAS’s final audit report included three ‘very important’ recommendations on ethics management, workload and performance management, and security controls over personnel files, plus three ‘important’ recommendations on selection and recruitment; calls on the Centre to execute the agreed action plan for the implementation of the IAS’s recommendations and to inform the budgetary authority on the progress made in this matter;












15.


Notes that the Centre performed an assessment of its internal control framework (ICF) in 2021, concluding that all components are present and functioning, with some improvements advisable regarding ‘control environment’, ‘control activities’ and ‘information and communication’; notes, however, that, according to the Centre’s assessment, current shortfalls did not affect the overall effectiveness of the ICF; welcomes the Centre’s ongoing activities to implement the action plan adopted to address the shortcomings of its ICF;












16.


Notes that a comprehensive risk identification and assessment exercise was carried out in 2021 to improve risk management at the Centre; further notes that the Centre performed a number of developments contributing to the overall effectiveness of the internal control system; observes, in particular, that a new corporate management information system (‘Matrix’) was deployed for operational planning, monitoring and reporting of activities; equally observes that a new strategy for the organisational management and internal control system was drafted and formalised in line with the applicable guidelines issued by the Commission;












17.


Notes, that the Centre adopted a revised anti-fraud strategy in 2021, with three strategic objectives and an action plan to be implemented in 2022; calls on the Centre to report to the discharge authority on the progress made in this matter;












18.


Is concerned about the ongoing observation from the Court in the use of external staff and interim workers; is concerned that, according to the Court’s report, the Centre hired these interim workers through a framework contract without respecting the requirements of Directive 2008/104/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) and of the Portuguese labour law; calls on the Centre to analyse the working conditions of its interim workers and ensure they are in line with Union and national labour law; further calls on the Centre to rely as much as possible on permanent staff and calls once again on the Commission to ensure appropriate human resources allocations for this purpose; welcomes the proposal made by the Commission to transform the Centre in a Union Drugs Agency; recalls that the new agency should be provided with the necessary human and financial resources to fulfil the objectives, tasks and responsibilities assigned to it under a regulation on a European Union Drugs Agency;





Digitalisation and the green transition









19.


Notes that the Centre has been actively monitoring its environmental performance and CO2 footprint with continuous improvement cycles reducing its CO2 footprint over the years in comparison to the established 2014 baseline, from 9,99 tonnes per member of staff, to 0,82 tonnes per member of staff in 2020; notes that the considerable drop in CO2 emissions is partly due to COVID-19 pandemic-related reduction in missions and transport, as well as to the Centre’s switch to CO2-neutral electricity generated from renewable energy sources; notes with interest that the Centre requires the use of green public procurement procedures to foster environmentally-friendly solutions in contract renewals; observes that the Centre is striving to obtain environmental certification in the long run, with due regard to the available resources; calls on the Centre to keep implementing its transition to renewable energy sources, while acknowledging that the Centre has an exemplary system and environmental policy in place;












20.


Welcomes the release in 2021 of the first modules of the Centre’s publication ‘Health and Social Responses to Drug Problems: A European Guide 2021’, as the Centre’s first fully digital publication;












21.


Takes note of the Centre’s ongoing efforts in developing the ICT infrastructure to support the organisation’s teleworking measures; notes, in this regard, the activation of an incidence response team and on-time resolution of operational response on health and safety requests; further notes that, after the activation of the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) in 2020, the Centre has been using remote tools to conduct recruitment; notes that the Centre implemented new measures to increase its cybersecurity, such as a transformation programme for end-user equipment, deployment of tools, and domain architecture to improve rapid response to threats, and the integration of two-factor-authentication for application accessible from outside the local network;





Business continuity during the COVID-19 crisis









22.


Welcomes that the Centre, in the framework of the task force to coordinate the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, developed a flexible and overarching framework to help address pandemic-related issues in a structured manner; notes that the framework included a number of pillars such as providing immediate response to support stakeholders, starting a process to review the impact of the situation on the Centre’s current substantive activities and ensuring coordination and synergies between such activities; notes that the Centre, following the evolution of the pandemic situation, deactivated the BCP in October; observes that the Centre carried out an exercise of lessons learned in 2022; calls on the Centre to report to the budgetary authority about the outcome of this exercise;





Other comments









23.


Notes the Centre’s ongoing practice of cooperation with other Union Agencies and international partners; welcomes that the Centre, as a member of the newly established EU Innovation Hub for Internal Security, cooperated with the Joint Research Council and Europol in implementing a Union-coordinated pilot project to develop a flexible online multi-user software framework for monitoring darknet criminal activities; notes, in the framework of the justice and home affairs Agencies’ network, the Centre’s cooperation with the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) for the use of the CEPOL-based training platform LEEd; further notes the Centre’s cooperation with the European Union Agency for Asylum for the study exploring substance-use-related problems and existing responses among professionals in the European reception context; further notes the Centre’s technical cooperation projects (IPA7, EU4MD and the EMCDDA for Georgia) with third countries implemented in 2021 in areas such as drugs information and drug-related health and security threats;












24.


Notes with appreciation that the Centre continues to share synergies with the European Maritime Safety Agency in corporate and support services and the management of common premises in Lisbon, and that these synergies also relate to ICT, telecommunications and internet-based infrastructures and services; acknowledges that operational synergies have been put in place with other Union agencies in the areas of justice and home affairs and health; commends this way of cohabitation of the two agencies as an example worth following;












25.


Welcomes the cooperation between the Centre and European Neighbourhood Policy partner countries at regional level, through the EU4MD technical assistance project, financed by the European Neighbourhood Instrument; further welcomes the start in 2021 of the Centre’s first technical assistance project at bilateral level with the EMCDDA for Georgia project; highlights the importance of these partnerships in enhancing the security in the Union neighbourhood area, as well as in combating drug trafficking and the use of illicit substances for Member States and its neighbouring partners;












26.


Calls upon the Centre to aim its focus on disseminating the results of its research to the general public, and to reach out to public via the social media and other media outlets; welcomes in this regard the user-accessibility of the reports created by the Centre;












27.


Refers, for other observations of a cross-cutting nature accompanying its decision on discharge, to its resolution of 10 May 2023 (3) on the performance, financial management and control of the agencies.







(1)  
            OJ C 141, 29.3.2022, p. 32.

(2)  Directive 2008/104/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on temporary agency work (OJ L 327, 5.12.2008, p. 9).

(3)  Texts adopted, P9_TA(2023)0190.