A.

whereas, under Article 319 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Parliament has the sole responsibility of granting discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the Union, and whereas the budget of the European Council and of the Council is a section of the Union budget;

B.

Whereas, pursuant to Article 15(1) of the Treaty on European Union, the European Council is not to exercise legislative functions;

C.

whereas, under Article 317 TFEU, the Commission is to implement the Union budget on its own responsibility, having regard to the principles of sound financial management, and whereas, under the framework in place, the Commission is to confer on the other Union institutions the requisite powers for the implementation of the sections of the budget relating to them;

D.

whereas, under Articles 235(4) and 240(2) TFEU, the European Council and the Council (the ‘Council’) are assisted by the General Secretariat of the Council (the ‘GSC’), and whereas the Secretary-General is wholly responsible for the sound management of the appropriations entered in Section II of the Union budget;

E.

whereas, over the course of almost twenty years, Parliament has been implementing the well-established and respected practice of granting discharge to all Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies, and whereas the Commission supports that the practice of giving discharge to each Union institution, body, office and agency for its administrative expenditure should continue to be pursued;

F.

whereas, since 2009, the Council’s lack of cooperation in the discharge procedure has compelled Parliament to refuse to grant discharge to the Secretary-General of the Council;

G.

whereas in the context of the discharge procedure, the discharge authority wishes to stress the particular importance of further strengthening the democratic legitimacy of the Union institutions by improving transparency and accountability, and implementing the concept of performance-based budgeting and good governance of human resources;

H.

whereas the European Council and the Council, as Union institutions and as recipients of the general budget of the Union, should be transparent and democratically accountable to the citizens of the Union and subject to democratic scrutiny of the spending of public funds;

I.

whereas the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union confirms the right of taxpayers and of the public to be kept informed about the use of public revenue;

J.

whereas the recommendation of the European Ombudsman (the ‘Ombudsman’) in Case OI/2/2017/TE indicated that the Council’s practice with regard to transparency in the legislative process constituted maladministration and should be addressed in order to enable citizens to follow the Union legislative process;

5.

Notes that in 2020 the Council had an overall budget of EUR 590 633 000 (compared to EUR 581 895 459 in 2019); observes a budget increase of 1,5 % compared to 2019 which confirms a downward trend in the annual budget increase (1,6 % in 2019, 2 % in 2018 and 3 % in 2017); notes that the Council share under Heading 5 of the Multiannual Financial Framework has decreased from 6,3 % in 2015 to 5,8 % in 2020; notes a high global implementation rate of 93,15 % (compared to 92,3 % in 2019);

6.

Understands that the Council’s budget is mostly administrative with a large part of it being used for expenditure in relation to staff, buildings (including furniture and equipment) and miscellaneous running costs; reiterates its call, made in previous resolutions on the budget, for separate budgets for the European Council and the Council in order to improve transparency, accountability and expenditure efficiency for both institutions;

7.

Recalls that appropriations carried over from 2019 to 2020 amounted to a total of EUR 52 543 491 (compared to EUR 56 599 584 from 2018 to 2019) and welcomes the fact that implementation amounted to 86,4 % (EUR 45 375 664), concentrated mainly on buildings, computer systems, interpretation and technical equipment;

8.

Notes an increase in the carry-over of appropriations from 2020 to 2021 (12,6 % in comparison to 9,8 % from 2019 to 2020); reminds the Council that carry-overs are exceptions to the principle of annuality of the Union budget and could be an indicator of budget over-estimations, and calls on the Council to step up its efforts to prevent budget overestimates;

9.

Observes that in 2020 the Council’s payments represented 5,2 % of the Union budget; notes that the average payment time for invoices to the GSC was 20 days in 2020 (compared to 19 in 2019) while the maximum time limit is 30 calendar days as stipulated by Directive 2011/7/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (1);

10.

Notes that the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the 2020 budget implementation; observes that fewer physical meetings led to lower spending on delegates’ travel expenses and interpretation costs; notes that this underspending was compensated at budgetary level by an increased spending on IT in order to rapidly develop the capacity for remote working and to guarantee business continuity; observes that such expenditure covered the relevant areas of new software acquisitions, external assistance and provision of hardware to facilitate home working;

11.

Notes that in 2020 the appropriations were reallocated by 46 transfers under Article 29 of the Financial Regulation; observes that those transfers aimed to reinforce the Council’s teleworking capabilities and videoconference infrastructure, including the purchase of additional IT equipment, licenses and communication tools; notes that, overall, the transfers were done from the budget lines for interpreting costs, cleaning and maintenance, buildings security and surveillance, and miscellaneous expenditure on internal meetings to the budget lines for installation works, acquisition of equipment and software, and assistance for the operation and development of computer systems;

12.

Notes that in 2020 the Court examined, without remarks, the public procurement procedures organised by the Council and three other Union institutions to acquire personal protective equipment for their staff and that the procurement included strict minimum requirements in the tender specification such as European reference quality standards; is aware that in four cases the successful bidder did not include full evidence that all minimum quality requirements were met at the time of contracting, leading the Council to organise laboratory tests that showed that the personal protective equipment was, indeed, compliant;

13.

Notes that the unexpected outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent exceptional situation required immediate action and organisational measures to ensure business continuity; notes with satisfaction that the Council’s timely and effective reaction to that crisis resulted in a number of structured measures in several areas to safeguard staff and to guarantee business continuity;

14.

Observes that the Council uses meetings, administrative modernisation and legislative activities as quantitative indicators of the level of activities carried out during the year; observes that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a decrease of 54,1 % (4 148) in the overall number of meetings that took place in 2020 compared to 2019; notes that in 2020 the GSC organised 3 086 institutional meetings and meetings with third countries (compared to 3 983 in 2019) and 434 other meetings (compared to 3 685 in 2019) and that 39,2 % of the meetings took place in remote or hybrid format;

15.

Welcomes the improvements in the GSC’s internal organisation, focusing in particular on dealing with the working limitations arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, such as an increase in the platforms and bandwidth for teleworking activities and the installation of appropriate videoconferencing equipment in small meeting rooms to facilitate hybrid meetings;

16.

Notes that in 2020 the Council maintained its legislative activity at the same level as in 2019 despite the challenging working conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1 328 legal acts published in the Official Journal of the European Union in 2020 compared to 1 326 in 2019;

17.

Acknowledges that an internal control framework is in place at the Council to provide reasonable assurance of achievement of objectives; is aware that risk management is carried out by keeping registers of the risks identified which are then assessed together with the impact of the mitigating measures adopted;

18.

Is aware that the Council’s internal auditor has performed a number of audits in the framework of the Council’s three-year risk-based strategic plan without issuing recommendations with high priority;

19.

Recalls that key performance indicators are a widely recognised tool for measuring achievement against targets set; calls on the Council to provide summaries of its key performance indicators and the related results in its management reports;

20.

Notes that the establishment plan for 2020 was fixed at 3 029 posts (compared to 3 033 in 2019) out of which 2 905 were occupied on 31 December 2020; observes that the occupation rate is close to 96 %;

21.

Regrets the lack of information on the implementation of the Council’s gender action plan and the measures taken to ensure equal opportunities for persons with disabilities at the Council as a workplace; calls on the Council to provide information to the budgetary authority on gender balance, geographical distribution and disabilities of its members of staff and on the related internal policies in force;

22.

Recalls its resolution of 17 December 2020 on the need for a dedicated Council configuration on gender equality as a dedicated institutional forum to ensure stronger integration of gender equality in Union strategies, coordination of all related policies and progress in the main files related to gender equality, as well as harmonisation of the protection of women’s rights and gender equality; regrets that the Council has thus far ignored this call by Parliament;

23.

Recalls that according to Article 286(2) TFEU the Council appoints the members of the Court after consultation with Parliament and understands the difficulties in achieving gender balance as nomination of candidates is the sole responsibility of the Member States and each Member State can only nominate one candidate at a time; finds it unacceptable, however, that the Court has had only 16 female members out of a total of 112 members since its establishment in 1977 (85,7 % male and 14,3 % female) and that in 2020 the Court had only 8 female members compared to 18 male members; calls on the Council to consider the overall composition of the Court so that gender balance, in particular, is considered in the nomination decisions, as well as to tackle this problem with concrete actions, such as presenting Parliament with at least two candidates from each Member State, one being a woman and one being a man;

24.

Notes that the internal psychosocial risk prevention plan 2020-2022 was adopted with a main focus on burnout prevention and good relations at work; observes that the plan was fully integrated into the GSC’s COVID-19 response with psychosocial risk surveys, dedicated information and training sessions, and various interventions by the social service; notes with appreciation the extensive support offered to staff, teams and managers by the organisational and clinical psychologists and social workers whose interventions in 2020 were significantly linked to COVID-19;

25.

Notes that in 2020 a total of 385 people (in active service as well as retired) called on the social service, with a total of 4 425 interventions, some of which were linked to the management of stress generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the internal psychologist processed a total of 164 individual requests; appreciates the fact that psychologists and social workers are an integral part of the psychosocial intervention plan in the event of a critical incident;

26.

Notes that the traineeships office processed more than 10 000 traineeship applications, out of which 110 trainees were selected, including a number of trainees with disabilities under the new positive action programme; reiterates the call on the Council to make sure that all of its trainees receive a decent remuneration;

27.

Notes that awareness-raising actions on ethics and expected behaviours were pursued; notes that the next ethics strategy was in preparation at the end of 2020, and that work advanced on developing a new user-centred ethics hub on the Council intranet; regrets, nevertheless, not having received information about the code of conduct applicable to all members of staff;

28.

Welcomes the political agreement on the Transparency Register for interest representatives, reached by Parliament, the Council and the Commission on 15 December 2020 (2); regrets, however, the limitations considered in Article 5 of Parliament’s decision of 27 April 2021 on the conclusion of an interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission on a mandatory transparency register (3), such as the fact that the Transparency Register applies to the Member States’ Permanent Representatives only under voluntary schemes; insists that all Permanent Representations should take an active part in it through voluntary schemes during and after their Member State’s Council presidency; calls on the Council, including the Member State representatives, to harmonise, improve and enforce the existing ethics rules, in particular with regard to conflicts of interest, revolving doors and lobby transparency rules; expresses its concern that legislative files are escalated to the European Council on an increasing basis, which has neither a legislative nor an executive function, does not apply the same transparency standards as the Council and is not being held accountable;

29.

Regrets the use of corporate sponsorship to cover some of the expenses incurred by Member States to finance their Council presidency; reiterates its concern that such practice has caused and might cause reputational damage in the future because any actual or perceived conflict of interests jeopardises the reputation of the Council and the Union as a whole; recalls the petitions launched by organisations active in the areas of transparency and accountability, asking the rotating Council presidencies to decline any sponsorship; regrets that a common set of clear, concrete and binding rules was not set out in the guidance on sponsorship included in the Council’s Presidency Handbook in 2021; understands that the financial resources from national budgets vary significantly among Member States and that each Member State, independent of its size and budgetary means, should have equal opportunities to organise a successful Council presidency and therefore, reiterates its call on the Council to examine budgeting the Council Presidency in order to ensure continuity and efficiency of the working process;

30.

Is aware of the Council’s key role in nomination and appointment procedures for the Union institutions and bodies, in particular the President of the European Council, the President of the Commission, the Members of the Court, and the Members of both the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee; strongly recommends a review of the exercise of that prerogative with a view to guaranteeing and strengthening the democratic participation of relevant stakeholders; regrets that the Council repeatedly failed to take into consideration the recommendations of Parliament in its consultative role regarding the appointment of the members of the Court;

31.

Is reminded of the Court’s statement in its ‘Special Report No 13/2019: The ethical frameworks of the audited EU institutions: scope for improvement’ that ethical conduct ‘contributes to sounder financial management and increased public trust, which is indispensable if public policies are to succeed’ and, in particular, that ‘any unethical behaviour by staff and Members of the Union (EU) institutions and bodies attracts high levels of public interest and reduces trust in the EU’; makes a strong call on the Council, therefore, to respect the opinions of Parliament and reject the appointment of candidates who could potentially damage the credibility of the Union, for instance due to insufficient professional competence or established unethical behaviour;

32.

Reiterates its full endorsement of the Ombudsman’s recommendations on transparency of the Council legislative process following its strategic inquiry (Case OI/2/2017/TE), in particular making the Member States’ positions more accessible, in a machine-readable format, which has already been established in 2013 by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its case-law (4) on transparency and access to documents; believes that compliance with the Ombudsman’s recommendations would enable citizens to be more involved and to better understand Union law making; welcomes the measures adopted by the Council in July 2020 to strengthen legislative transparency in line with the Ombudsman’s recommendations, including the proactive publication of progress reports on negotiations on draft legislative acts as well as the Council mandate for negotiations with Parliament; regrets, however, that the decision-making process in the Council is still far from fully transparent; calls on the Council to take all the necessary measures to implement the Ombudsman’s recommendations and the relevant rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union;

33.

Reiterates its deep concern with respect to the confirmed conflicts of interest of Member State representatives involved in policy and budget decision-making processes; follows up Parliament’s previous strong calls on the Council to ensure that Member State representatives who stand to benefit directly from Union subsidies through the businesses they own do not participate in related policy or budgetary discussions and votes; requests the Council to provide Parliament with information on the necessary measures put in place to avoid conflicts of interest;

34.

Shares the Court’s concern about the absence of a common Union ethical framework governing the work of Member State representatives in the Council, expressed in the Court’s Special Report No 13/2019; recalls the Council’s obligation to deal with and resolve high-level conflicts of interest and revolving door issues and to extend the existing mandatory lobby transparency rules;

35.

Strongly reiterates its call on the Council to bring the code of conduct for the President of the European Council in line with those of Parliament and the Commission in order to have rules in place to approve activities related to Union legislation after the President of the European Council leaves his or her post;

36.

Notes that the final budget appropriations made available to the Directorate-General for Digital Services increased substantially at the mid-term and year-end reviews by EUR 10,6 million, reaching a final amount of EUR 54 675 000 and achieving an execution rate of 99,99 %;

37.

Reiterates its call on the Council to use open-source technology in order to prevent vendor lock-in, to retain control over its own technical systems, to provide stronger safeguards for the privacy and data protection of its users, and to increase security and transparency for the public;

38.

Observes that the Council’s buildings policy since 2004 has aimed to ultimately accommodate all its activities in Brussels in geographically concentrated buildings under its ownership; encourages the Council to adjust its building strategy in order to take into account the working arrangements that will likely become part of long-lasting or permanent working modes, in particular with regard to shared spaces or multipurpose areas;

39.

Welcomes the efforts by the Council to reduce its environmental footprint across its buildings which have been registered under the European eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS) since 2016; welcomes the publishing of a detailed environmental statement in October 2020, based on 2019 data;

40.

Notes that on 31 December 2020 the Council was in possession of 3 469 Green Energy Certificates; is aware that such certificates are allocated by the regional energy market regulator based on the energy produced in 2020 by solar panels located on the roof of Council buildings, and that, following the appropriate sales procedures, these will be sold on the open market in 2021;

41.

Calls on the Council to explicitly engage in a ‘zero paper campaign’ and to adopt a structured approach to enhance the sustainable mobility of members of staff; encourages the Council to engage in sustainability reporting on energy management in buildings, thus making it possible to take precise actions towards the reduction of energy consumption;

42.

Notes the increased audience on several social media platforms from 2019 to 2020 with approximately 443 000 followers on Facebook (an increase of 8 %), approximately 561 000 followers on Twitter (an increase of 22 %) and approximately 167 000 followers on Instagram (an increase of 37 %); observes an increase of 39 % in visits to the Council’s website, reaching more than 16 million visits in 2020; encourages the Council to establish a presence on open-source social media networks to achieve further transparency and broader outreach to Union citizens;

43.

Notes that, in the context of its increased cooperation with the Member States on COVID-19 communication, the Council worked with the European External Action Service to set up the Communicators’ Portal, a secure platform used to share reusable digital content with Member States;

44.

Is aware that the Council was the first Union institution to create a COVID-19 information hub on its website with the aim of explaining, in a regular and comprehensive manner, the response of the Union in general and the Council in particular to the COVID-19 pandemic;

45.

Calls on the Council to comply fully with the obligations set out in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 16 December 2020 between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission on budgetary discipline, on cooperation in budgetary matters and on sound financial management, as well as on new own resources, including a roadmap towards the introduction of new own resources (5);

46.

Expresses its belief that the Conference on the Future of Europe can provide the opportunity for Union citizens and civil society organisations to express their views and to discuss proposals to enhance transparency and democratic accountability with regard to the Union budget and, in particular, proposals to improve the transparency and readability of the Council’s budget;

47.

Emphasises Parliament’s prerogative to grant discharge pursuant to Article 319 TFEU as well as the applicable provisions of the Financial Regulation and Parliament’s Rules of Procedure in line with current interpretation and practice, namely, the power to grant discharge in order to maintain transparency and to ensure democratic accountability towards Union taxpayers;

48.

Stresses the well-established and respected practice followed by Parliament over the course of almost twenty years of granting discharge to all Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies; recalls that the Commission has declared its inability to oversee the implementation of the budgets of the other Union institutions; stresses the reiterated view of the Commission that the practice of giving discharge to each Union institution for their administrative expenditure should continue to be pursued directly by Parliament;

49.

Stresses that the current situation, where Parliament can only check the reports of the Court and of the Ombudsman as well as the information on the Council’s website but does not receive written or oral answers from the Council during the annual discharge procedure, i.e. the Council refuses to collaborate with Parliament in the context of the annual discharge procedure, makes it impossible for Parliament to make an informed decision on granting discharge;

50.

Deplores that the Council for more than a decade has shown that it does not have any political willingness to collaborate with Parliament in the context of the annual discharge procedure, which makes it impossible for Parliament to make an informed decision on granting discharge; underlines that this attitude has had a lasting negative effect on both institutions and has discredited the management and democratic scrutiny of the Union budget and on the trust of citizens in the Union as a transparent entity; deeply regrets the Council’s continuing refusal to engage in loyal cooperation in the framework of the discharge procedure that has lasted for more than a decade;

51.

Stresses that, while the current situation has to be improved through better interinstitutional cooperation within the framework of the Treaties, a revision of the Treaties could render the discharge procedure clearer and more transparent by giving Parliament the explicit competence to grant discharge to all Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies individually;

52.

Recalls that the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union supports the right of taxpayers and the public to be kept informed about the use of public revenues; demands, therefore, full respect for Parliament’s prerogative and role as guarantor of the democratic accountability principle; calls on the Council to duly follow up on the recommendations adopted by Parliament in the context of the discharge procedure;

53.

Considers it unacceptable that the COVID-19 pandemic and the exceptional situation experienced have been used as an excuse for not resuming interinstitutional negotiations on the discharge procedure; remains, nevertheless, convinced that an agreement on this matter is possible if the Council were to show any political willingness to collaborate; calls, therefore, on the Council to resume negotiations with Parliament without undue delay in order to find a solution in the current framework of the discharge procedure if it is interested in showing Union citizens that it takes proper budget control and transparency seriously while respecting the respective roles of Parliament and the Council in the discharge procedure.