6.

Pursuant to the provisions of Article 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Court has audited:

7.

In accordance with Articles 16 and 22 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 110/2014 (8), the management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions.

8.

The Court’s responsibility is, on the basis of its audit, to provide the European Parliament and the Council (10) with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. The Court conducts its audit in accordance with the IFAC International Standards on Auditing and Codes of Ethics and the INTOSAI International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions. These standards require the Court to plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance as to whether the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking are free from material misstatement and the underlying transactions are legal and regular.

9.

The audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgement, which is based on an assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the accounts and material non-compliance by the underlying transactions with the requirements in the legal framework of the European Union, whether due to fraud or error. In assessing these risks, the auditor considers any internal controls relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of the accounts, as well as the supervisory and control systems that are implemented to ensure the legality and regularity of underlying transactions, and designs audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances. The audit also entails evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies, the reasonableness of accounting estimates and the overall presentation of the accounts.

10.

The Court considers that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for its statement of assurance.

11.

In the Court’s opinion, the Joint Undertaking’s accounts for the period 1 January to 26 June 2014 present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position as at 26 June 2014 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the period then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its financial rules and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer.

12.

The Joint Undertaking’s ex-post audit strategy (11), adopted by a Governing Board decision on 18 November 2010, is a key tool (12) for assessing the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. The payments made in 2014 relating to certificates of acceptance of costs issued by the national funding authorities of the Member States (NFAs) amounted to 14,2 million euro, or 79 % of the total payments.

13.

Although the audit of project cost claims has been delegated to the NFAs, the administrative agreements signed with the NFAs do not include practical arrangements for ex-post audits.

14.

The Joint Undertaking received audit reports from the NFAs covering approximately 76 % (as of April 2015) of the costs related to completed projects. However, the Joint Undertaking did not assess the quality of these audits (13). The Court performed an assessment of the audit strategies, including audit reports, of three NFAs which indicated that the methodologies used by the NFAs did not allow the Joint Undertaking to calculate a reliable weighted error rate nor a residual error rate. Therefore it is not possible to conclude whether ex-post audits are functioning effectively and whether this key control provides sufficient assurance as to the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions.

15.

In the Court’s opinion, except for the possible effects of the matter described in the basis for a qualified opinion in paragraphs 12 to 14, the transactions underlying the annual accounts for the financial year ended 26 June 2014 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.