17.12.2013   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 369/10

1.

The Clean Sky Joint Undertaking, located in Brussels, was set up in December 2007 (1) for a period of 10 years.

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 (2). The research activities coordinated by the Joint Undertaking are divided into six technological areas or ‘Integrated Technology Demonstrators’ (ITDs).

3.

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

4.

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 Framework Programme (3). Other members of the Joint Undertaking are to contribute resources at least equal to the EU contribution, including in-kind contributions.

5.

The Joint Undertaking started working autonomously on 16 November 2009.

6.

The audit approach taken by the Court comprises analytical audit procedures, testing of transactions at the level of the Joint Undertaking and an assessment of key controls of the supervisory and control systems. This is supplemented by evidence provided by the work of other auditors (where relevant) and an analysis of management representations.

7.

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

8.

In accordance with Articles 33 and 43 of Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002 (6), 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.

9.

The Court’s responsibility is, on the basis of its audit, to provide the European Parliament and the Council (8) 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.

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

In the Court’s opinion, the Joint Undertaking’s annual accounts present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position as at 31 December 2012 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its financial rules and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer

13.

In the Court’s opinion, the transactions underlying the annual accounts for the year ended 31 December 2012 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.

14.

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

15.

The 2012 final amending budget included commitment appropriations of 205,4 million euro and payment appropriations of 167,9 million euro. The utilisation rate for commitment appropriations was 84 %, while the rate for payment appropriations was 75 % (9). The lower rate for payment appropriations reflects delays in the implementation of the budget, mainly as a result of delays in the implementation of activities (10) and in the period between the publication of calls for proposals and the signing of grant agreements (11).

16.

During 2012 the Joint Undertaking further improved its management, administrative, financial and accounting procedures. One of the main achievements in 2012 was the implementation of the ‘GMT tool’, a specific application for managing financial information relating to the implementation of grant agreements with members. However, the GMT tool still presents some limitations as regards the completeness of the operational information managed (12).

17.

With regard to the ex ante control of cost claims submitted by Clean Sky members, the audit certificates accompanying the cost claims of two beneficiaries were found to include reservations about the contracts of the staff employed on the project; in one of them the audit certificate also included reservations on the indirect cost rates applied. Despite these significant exceptions, the Joint Undertaking released the payments.

18.

The following weaknesses were noted in respect of the ex ante control of cost claims submitted by Clean Sky partners:

19.

The recommendations made in the accounting officer’s 2012 validation of the underlying systems need to be duly followed up (13).

20.

In 2012, resource constraints within the organisation and the launch of the first ex post audit exercise compelled the internal auditor to focus on the Joint Undertaking’s core processes, including the preparation of the 2012 accounts. As a result, the audit tasks scheduled in the 2012 audit plan could not be completed. A similar situation was reported by the Court in 2011 (14).

21.

In 2012, the Commission’s Internal Audit Service audited the annual planning process for the management of grants (15). The audit concluded that the existing internal control system gave reasonable assurance as to the achievement of the business objectives set for this process, except for two very important reservations concerning delays in the implementation of the programme and the system for evaluating the utilisation of resources (16).

22.

The mission charter of the Commission’s Internal Audit Service was adopted by the Governing Board on 31 March 2011. However, the Joint Undertaking’s financial rules have not yet been amended to include the provisions of the framework Regulation (17) referring to the powers of the Commission’s internal auditor.

23.

The Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) establishes a monitoring and reporting system covering the protection, dissemination and transfer of research results (18).

24.

In the grant agreements signed with beneficiaries, the Joint Undertaking has included specific provisions governing intellectual property rights and the dissemination of research results. Implementation of these provisions is monitored by the Joint Undertaking at different stages of the funded projects.

25.

Nevertheless, the way the results of this monitoring are reported needs to evolve further to meet the objectives of Article 7 of Decision No 1982/2006/EC (19) and Article 27 of Regulation (EC) No 1906/2006 (20).

26.

Significant progress has been made as regards the IT aspects of the Joint Undertaking’s business continuity plan and disaster recovery plan. According to the Joint Undertaking, these plans will be completed by the end of 2013.