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having regard to the final annual accounts of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for the financial year 2009,

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having regard to the Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for the financial year 2009, together with the Centre’s replies (1),

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having regard to the Council’s recommendation of 15 February 2011 (05892/2011 — C7-0052/2011),

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having regard to Article 276 of the EC Treaty and Article 319 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

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having regard to Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (2), and in particular Article 185 thereof,

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having regard to Regulation (EC) No 851/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 establishing a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (3), and in particular Article 23 thereof,

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having regard to Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002 of 19 November 2002 on the framework Financial Regulation for the bodies referred to in Article 185 of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (4), and in particular Article 94 thereof,

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having regard to Rule 77 of, and Annex VI to, its Rules of Procedure,

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having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (A7-0107/2011),

A.

whereas the Court of Auditors stated that it has obtained reasonable assurances that the annual accounts for the financial year 2009 are reliable and that the underlying transactions are legal and regular,

B.

whereas on 5 May 2010 Parliament granted the Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control discharge for implementation of the Centre’s budget for the financial year 2008 (5), and in its resolution accompanying the discharge decision, inter alia:

C.

whereas the budget of the Centre for the year 2009 was EUR 51 000 000, which is an increase of 25,3 % on the financial year 2008,

1.

Notes that the Centre’s budget increased from EUR 17 100 000 in 2006 to EUR 51 000 000 in 2009;

2.

Notes that EUR 51 000 000 had been made available as resources for the Centre in 2009, of which EUR 48 100 000 came from subsidies from the Union budget;

3.

Underlines that the implementation of payment credits slightly improved to 91 %, which represents an amount of unused credits of EUR 4 800 000; notes, however, that this under-execution is related to the fact that the Centre limited its request for payment credits in order to reduce the amount of cash in its bank account at year-end, as requested by the Court of Auditors and the Commission;

4.

Calls once more on the Centre to set out, in a table to be annexed to the Court of Auditors’ next report, a comparison of the operations that were carried out during the year for which discharge is to be granted and during the previous financial year, so as to enable the discharge authority to assess more effectively the Centre’s performance from one year to the next;

5.

Considers, nevertheless, that the Centre is an important institution that can strengthen and develop European disease surveillance and assess and communicate current and emerging threats to human health posed by infectious diseases;

6.

Points to the important contributions made by the Centre to the measures to fight the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, for example by issuing preliminary guidelines on the ‘Use of specific pandemic influenza vaccines during the H1N1 2009 pandemic’;

7.

Takes the view that the Centre’s powers must be strengthened so that the Union has an independent capacity to assess the severity of the risk of infection should a pandemic occur and so that coordination between the Member States can be improved;

8.

Notes that the Centre was able to develop a considerable number of products and services in 2009 on epidemiology, surveillance, prevention and control of communicable diseases as well as publishing a variety of scientific reports;

9.

Requests the Court of Auditors to undertake performance audits on the Centre;

10.

Is concerned that already in 2006 the Court of Auditors reported a high level of carry-overs which has a negative impact on the implementation of the budget and is at odds with the principle of annuality; notes in particular that appropriations carried forward from 2008, amounting to EUR 2 200 000, had to be cancelled and in 2009 appropriations carried forward represented 42 % of Title II — Administrative expenditure, and 63 % of Title III — Operational expenditure; calls therefore on the Centre to inform the discharge authority of the measures taken to redress this deficiency;

11.

Welcomes the fact that, in the end, a Seat Agreement was signed by the Chair’s Management Board and the Swedish Minister for Public Health and Elderly Care on 30 June 2010 as well as an accompanying change in the law to enable the Centre’s staff and their families to be included in Sweden’s population register;

12.

Is concerned about the fact that once again the Centre has not comprehensively fulfilled its obligation to send to the discharge authority a report drawn up by its Director summarising the content of the Internal Audit Service (IAS) recommendation as provided for in Article 72(5) of the framework Financial Regulation; is concerned, in particular, that, in relation to the follow-up of earlier recommendations, the Centre received one ‘very important’ recommendation and seven other ‘important’ recommendations from the IAS but that no information is given on their content; urges therefore the Director of the Centre to provide this information;

13.

Acknowledges that the IAS also performed an audit on financial management in 2009 which had the overall objective of obtaining reasonable assurance on the adequacy of the internal controls supporting procedures for financial management, procurement planning, budget implementation, management reporting and monitoring and controls; stresses that the IAS’ recommendations concern the need to update and reinforce financial procedures for commitments and payments to define and record more accurately the controls performed;

14.

Refers, in respect of the other observations accompanying its Decision on discharge, which are of a horizontal nature, to its resolution of 10 May 2011 (6) on the performance, financial management and control of the agencies.