16.12.2010   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 342/7

1.

The Clean Sky Joint Undertaking, located in Brussels, was set up in December 2007 (1) for the period up to 31 December 2017.

2.

The objective of the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking is to accelerate the development, validation and demonstration of clean air transport technologies in the EU for earliest possible deployment (see Table).

3.

The research activities coordinated by the Joint Undertaking are divided into six technological areas or ‘integrated technology demonstrators’ (ITDs).

4.

The founding members of the Joint Undertaking are the European Union represented by the Commission as public representative, and industrial partners as the leaders of the ITDs, together with the associate members of the ITDs.

5.

The maximum EU contribution to the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking to cover running costs and research activities is 800 million euro to be paid from the budget of the Seventh Research Framework Programme. Other Members of the Joint Undertaking are to contribute resources at least equal to the EU contribution, including in-kind contributions.

6.

The Joint Undertaking started working autonomously on 16 November 2009.

16.

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

17.

The adoption, structure and presentation of the approved budget of the Joint Undertaking for 2009 were not in line with the Council Regulation setting up the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking, nor the Financial Rules of the Joint Undertaking. The budget does not respect the principle of equilibrium and does not include all the required elements (for example, a staff establishment plan).

18.

The final budget included commitment appropriations of 91 million euro and payment appropriations of 60 million euro. The utilisation rate for commitment appropriations was 98 %, the rate for payment appropriations was less than 1 %. The Joint Undertaking concluded contracts for 70,6 million euro in December 2009, but the pre-financing payments amounting to 56,5 million euro could only be made in January 2010.

19.

The research activities pre-financed by the Commission in 2008 on behalf of the Joint Undertaking were not fully implemented during 2009. Due to delays in the projects, only 8,7 million euro or 65 % of the 13,6 million euro pre-financing was used. Therefore, at the end of 2009, the Joint Undertaking had a potential outstanding recoverable amount of 4,9 million euro.

20.

The Court notes that the activities of the EU Joint Undertakings are funded by contributions from their members, and that the Joint Undertakings have no capital as such. The Court recommended that this specific feature of the Joint Undertakings is clearly disclosed in the accounts.

21.

The Court therefore welcomes the fact that, in accordance with EU Accounting Rule 1 (Group Accounting), the contributions from members are presented under Net Assets in the Balance Sheets of the Joint Undertakings, and that further information on the nature of the contributions is provided in the Notes to the Accounts.

22.

The Court considers that the presentation of members’ contributions in the Accounts of the Joint Undertakings should be harmonised as far as possible and notes the intention of the Commission to issue detailed guidance in this respect to the Joint Undertakings.

23.

The Joint Undertaking is in the start-up phase and procedures have been developed for relevant areas of the organisation such as the financial workflow and procurements. However, as demonstrated by the Court’s audit findings, these internal control procedures require further development in order to meet the requirements for effective and efficient internal control set out in the Financial Rules of the Joint Undertaking.

24.

At the end of 2009, the underlying business processes had not yet been formalised and had not been validated by the Accounting Officer as required by the Financial Rules of the Joint Undertaking.

25.

The Clean Sky Joint Undertaking uses the Commission’s financial management IT tools, which may be considered robust systems. However further development of IT processes and policies is necessary to ensure business continuity.

26.

The procedure laid down in the Clean Sky Financial Rules and the General Agreement with the Commission for the request for payment of the Commission contributions was not properly applied. The Court tested five recovery orders, and found that in each case, the request for payment was not accompanied by the required cash-flow forecast.

27.

In line with the views expressed in its Opinions No 4/2008 on the Financial Regulation of the Fusion for Energy Joint Undertaking and No 2/2010 on the Financial Regulation of SESAR Joint Undertaking, the Court considers that the current provision in the Statutes of the Joint Undertaking on the role of the Commission’s internal auditor should be clarified.

28.

Article 11 of the Statutes of the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking states that the functions of the Commission’s internal auditor are to be carried out under the responsibility of the Governing Board of the Joint Undertaking. In the Court’s opinion, such an arrangement is appropriate for the internal auditing function within the Joint Undertaking but not for the Commission’s internal auditor, whose responsibilities relate to the general EU budget as a whole.

29.

According to the Council Regulation of December 2007 setting up the Joint Undertaking, a host agreement should be concluded between the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking and Belgium concerning office accommodation, privileges and immunities and other support to be provided by Belgium as host State to the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking. At the date of the audit, no such agreement had been signed.