15.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 304/77

REPORT

on the annual accounts of the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation for the financial year 2008, together with the Agency’s replies

2009/C 304/15

CONTENTS

 

Paragraph

Page

INTRODUCTION …

1-2

78

STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE …

3-12

78

COMMENTS ON THE BUDGETARY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT …

13

79

Table …

80

The Agency’s replies …

82

INTRODUCTION

1.

The Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Agency’), located in Brussels, is the former Intelligent Energy Executive Agency (IEEA). Its mandate and the duration thereof were altered following Commission Decision 2007/372/EC of 31 May 2007 (1) amending Decision 2004/20/EC of 23 December 2003 (2). The Agency was established for a limited period beginning on 1 January 2004 and now ending on 31 December 2015 with the aim of managing Community actions in the field of energy, entrepreneurship and innovation, and sustainable freight transport (3).

2.

The Agency’s 2008 budget amounted to 11,5 million euro compared with 6,9 million euro the previous year. The number of staff employed by the Agency at the end of the year was 131 as compared with 69 the previous year.

STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE

3.

Pursuant to the provisions of Article 248 of the Treaty the Court has audited the annual accounts (4) of the Agency, which comprise the ‘financial statements’ (5) and the ‘reports on implementation of the budget’ (6) 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 14 of Council Regulation (EC) No 58/2003 (7).

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 (8). The Director is responsible for putting in place (9) the organisational structure and the internal management and control systems and procedures relevant for drawing up final accounts (10) 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 (11) 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 and about the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them. The procedures selected depend on its audit judgment 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 (12) 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.

The initial budget of 14,8 million euro was reduced by 3,3 million euro in October 2008 (13). The main reasons for the modifications made to the initial budget were delays in the recruitment of staff and, to a lesser extent, revised forecasts of the number of missions planned and building rental costs being lower than expected.

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

Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (Brussels)

Areas of Community competence deriving from the Treaty

Competences of the Agency as defined in Commission Decision 2004/20/EC amended by Commission Decision 2007/372/EC

Governance

Resources available to the Agency in 2008

(Data for 2007)

Activities and services provided in 2008

1.

The Community policy on the environment shall contribute to preserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment; protecting human health; prudent and rational utilisation of natural resources; and promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems.

(Article 174 of the Treaty)

2.

The Community policy on industry shall ensure that the conditions necessary for the competitiveness of the Community’s industry exist by speeding up the adjustment of industry to structural changes, encouraging an environment favourable to initiative and to the development of and cooperation between undertakings, fostering better exploitation of the industrial potential of policies of innovation, research and technological development. The Member States shall consult each other in liaison with the Commission and, where necessary, shall coordinate their action. The Commission may take any useful initiative to promote such coordination.

(Article 157 of the Treaty)

3.

The common transport policy shall lay down common rules applicable to international transport to or from the territory of a Member State or passing across the territory of one or more Member States. It shall also set out the conditions under which non-resident carriers may operate transport services within a Member State, and lay down measures to improve transport safety.

(Articles 71(1) and 80(2))

Objectives

Within the framework of the Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs, the European Union has taken measures to promote and develop competitiveness and innovation. These measures include the establishment of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) 2007-2013 (Decision No 1639/2006/EC), notably with the programmes Intelligent Energy — Europe (IEE) and Entrepreneurship and Innovation (EIP). They also include the Marco Polo (MP) programme (Regulation (EC) No 1692/2006).

The main objectives are to foster competitiveness of enterprises, in particular SMEs; to promote all forms of innovation, including eco-innovation; to promote energy efficiency and new and renewable energy sources in all sectors, including transport.

Under these Community programmes, the Agency is responsible for implementing the tasks concerning Community aid, except for programme evaluation, monitoring of legislation and strategic studies, or any other action which comes under the exclusive competence of the European Commission.

Tasks

In the context of implementing the Community programmes for which the delegation of tasks from the Commission to the Agency was effective in 2008:

—

To manage all phases in the lifetime of specific projects.

—

To adopt the instruments of budget implementation and to carry out, where the Commission has empowered it to do so, all operations necessary to manage the Community programme and, in particular, those linked to the award of contracts and grants.

—

To gather, analyse and pass on to the Commission all the information needed to guide the implementation of the programme as well as to promote coordination and synergy among the programmes.

—

As regards the EIP, to be in charge of project management and network animation of the Enterprise Europe Network, eco-innovation pilot and market replication projects, and innovation actions with a high degree of standardisation (IP Base project).

1 —   Steering Committee

Comprises five members appointed by the European Commission. It adopts the Agency’s annual work programme after approval by the European Commission. In addition, it adopts the administrative budget of the Agency and its annual activity report.

2 —   Director

Appointed by the European Commission.

3 —   External Audit

The Court of Auditors.

4 —   Discharge authority

Parliament, acting on a recommendation by the Council.

Budget

A)

204,8 (137,3) million euro (100 % general budget of the European Union of which 55,8 (63,8) million euro for IEE; 27,9 (0,0) million euro for eco-innovation; 38,3 (0,0) million euro for MP; 82,8 (73,5) million euro for EIP. The EACI implements the operating budget under the responsibility of the Commission.)

B)

11,5 (6,9) million euro (100 % Community subsidy) for the administrative budget for which the EACI is autonomous.

Staff at 31 December 2008

TA posts: 36 (35) listed in the establishment plan, of which 27 (22) occupied.

Contract staff: 108 (77) posts planned, of which 104 (47) were occupied.

Total staff: 131 (69)

Responsible for

a)

Operational tasks:

110 (54)

b)

Administrative tasks:

21 (15)

For the Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) programme, the Agency monitored 409 ongoing IEE projects and signed 73 new grant agreements related to the 2007 call for proposals. For the 2008 call, the Agency selected 54 projects out of 342 submitted proposals. The call was promoted through the IEE website, electronic news alerts and 37 Info Days (460 participants at the European Info Day and 1 500 participants at the 15 national Info Days attended by the Agency).

The Agency spread information about the programme and its results via the IEE website (1,2 million page views, 400 000 downloads), a new searchable project database, 4 new video reports (> 18 million viewers, > 150 TV broadcasts), 5 new project brochures (87 000 copies distributed), the Intelligent Energy News Review (80 000 copies distributed) and 6 electronic news alerts (10 000 subscribers). Through workshops the Agency fed back results from IEE projects to the Commission, e.g. on the energy performance of the buildings Directive.

For the EIP programme:

Launched at the beginning of 2008, the Enterprise Europe Network offers a ‘one-stop shop’ to meet the business and innovation needs of SMEs and companies in the EU. In 2008, the Agency became ‘fully autonomous’ for the delegated project management and network animation tasks.

By the end of 2008, grant agreements were signed with all 83 consortia.

After the hand-over from the Commission in April 2008, the Agency organised more than 8 working groups, 2 training sessions for network partners with more than 90 participants and — together with the French EU Presidency — the Annual Conference of the Network with more than 800 participants. The Agency also developed the graphical charter of the network.

For the eco-innovation market replication projects, the Agency prepared and published the 2008 call. The evaluation of the 134 submitted proposals was nearly completed by the end of 2008. The 2008 call was promoted via 1 European and 10 national Info Days (1 260 participants) and a new dedicated website (> 300 000 page views). The efforts to promote the scheme also included a new graphical charter, an electronic news alert system (3 000 subscribers) and new posters and flyers (12 000 copies distributed).

For the Marco Polo programme:

In March 2008, the Agency became responsible for monitoring 43 ongoing projects; in the course of 2008, 20 new grant agreements were signed related to the 2007 call for proposals. The Agency managed the evaluation of the 2008 call, with 46 proposals received and 30 selected. Efforts to promote the programme included a renewed website (some 250 000 page views), a new graphical charter, 7 electronic news alerts (800 subscribers), new posters (2 000 copies distributed), two regional conferences in Valencia and Venice (400 participants), improved media work (40 press articles, more than 1,5 million readers) and the development of the first video (release in 2009).

Source: Information supplied by the Agency.

THE AGENCY’S REPLIES

13.

The initial 2008 budget was based on estimated staff numbers indicated in the ‘fiche financière’ of the Commission decision to extend the Agency's tasks. In the event staff were recruited during the year according to the successive handover of tasks from the parent Directorates General.

(1)  OJ L 140, 1.6.2007, p. 52.

(2)  OJ L 5, 9.1.2004, p. 85.

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

(4)  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.

(5)  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.

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

(7)  OJ L 11, 16.1.2003, p. 5.

(8)  Article 25 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1653/2004 of 21 September 2004 (OJ L 297, 22.9.2004, p. 6).

(9)  Article 29 of Regulation (EC) No 1653/2004.

(10)  The rules concerning the presentation of the accounts and accounting by the Agencies are laid down in Chapter 1 of Title VI of Regulation (EC) No 1653/2004 as last amended by Commission Regulation (EC) No 651/2008 of 9 July 2008 (OJ L 181, 10.7.2008, p. 15).

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

(12)  The Final Annual Accounts were drawn up on 29 May 2009 and received by the Court on 30 June 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 or http://www.europa.eu/agencies/executive_agencies/eaci/index_en.htm

(13)  Amending Budget 1/2008 (OJ L 342, 19.12.2008, p. 31).