15.12.2011   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 366/21

1.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (hereinafter ‘the Agency’), which is located in Cologne, was established by Regulation (EC) No 1592/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 July 2002 (1). The Agency's tasks are to maintain a high level of civil aviation safety, to ensure the proper development of civil aviation safety, to establish certification specifications and to provide certification of aeronautical products (2).

2.

The Agency’s 2010 budget amounted to 137 million euro, compared with 122 million euro the previous year. The number of (temporary and contractual) staff employed by the Agency at the end of the year was 578, compared with 509 the previous year.

3.

Pursuant to the provisions of Article 287(1), second subparagraph, of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Court has audited the annual accounts (3) of the Agency, which comprise the ‘financial statements’ (4) and the ‘reports on the implementation of the budget’ (5) for the financial year ended 31 December 2010, 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 185(2) of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 (6).

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 the authorised appropriations (7). The Director is responsible for putting in place (8) the organisational structure and the internal management and control systems and procedures relevant for drawing up final accounts (9) 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.

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 (10) International Auditing Standards and Codes of Ethics. Those standards require the Court to comply with ethical requirements and to plan and perform the audit so as to obtain reasonable assurance as to whether the accounts are free of material misstatement and whether the underlying transactions are legal and regular.

8.

The Court’s audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence of the amounts and disclosures in the accounts and of the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them. The procedures selected, including its assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the accounts or of illegal or irregular transactions, whether due to fraud or error, depend on its audit judgement. In making those risk assessments, internal controls relevant to the entity’s preparation and presentation of accounts are considered in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances. The Court’s audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of the accounting policies used and the reasonableness of the 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.

10.

In the Court’s opinion, the Agency’s Annual Accounts (11) fairly present, in all material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2010 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation.

11.

In the Court’s opinion, the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Agency for the financial year ended 31 December 2010 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.

12.

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

13.

The Agency manages certification tasks which are partly outsourced to national aviation authorities. The related accrued expenditure at year end was estimated by assuming an overall percentage of completion per certification type category using insufficient historical experience. To comply with the accruals accounting principle, the percentage of completion or elapsed-time method is more appropriate.

14.

For two large procurement procedures, the evaluation method did not allow tenders offering the best financial bid to achieve the highest price score. This situation put at risk the transparency of the procurement process as well as the principle of sound financial management.

15.

With regard to staff selection procedures, there was no evidence that thresholds for being invited to interview or put on the reserve list had been defined before the examination of the applications started. These practices put at risk the transparency of the recruitment procedures.