16.12.2014   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 452/1

1.

Pursuant to the provisions of Article 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Court has audited the annual accounts for the financial year ended 31 December 2013 and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them for seven European Research Joint Undertakings (JUs):

2.

Apart from the European Union (represented by the Commission), members of the Joint Undertakings may include various public and private partners who make contributions to the funding of the activities performed by the Joint Undertakings. The Joint Undertakings either follow a bipartite model with the participation of the European Commission and the industry, or a tripartite model with the participation also of the Member States (1). Joint Undertakings play an important role in implementing research policy in specific areas.

3.

This summary provides an overview on the results of the Court’s annual audits of the Joint Undertakings for the financial year 2013. It aims at facilitating the analysis and comparison of the Court’s specific reports on the 2013 annual accounts of the Joint Undertakings. The Court’s opinions and comments as well as the Joint Undertakings’ replies can be found in the published specific annual reports. This summary is not an audit report or opinion.

4.

The Joint Undertakings’ total 2013 forecasted budgeted income (2) amounted to some 2,2 billion euro (2012: 2,5 billion euro) or about 1,7 % of the 2013 EU general budget (2012: 1,8 %) (3). Of the actual amounts received, approximately 686 million euro (2012: 618 million euro) came from the EU general budget (cash contribution from the European Commission) and approximately 134 million euro (2012: 134 million euro) came from the industrial partners and members of the Joint Undertakings.

5.

The Joint Undertakings employ 414 (2012: 409) permanent and temporary officials or less than 1 % of total EU officials authorised under the EU general budget (staff establishment plan). Details on the audited Joint Undertakings, their budgets and staff are provided in Annex I.

6.

Whereas the financial risk related to the Joint Undertakings is limited compared to the total EU budget, the reputational risk for the Union is high: they are a key tool for the implementation of the EU Research strategy and their public-private partnership nature makes them highly visible among the industries they are cooperating with.

7.

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 and an analysis of management representations and of annual activity reports. The 2013 audit placed special emphasis on ex post audits.

8.

The final accounts of all Joint Undertakings present fairly, in all material respects, their financial position as at 31 December 2013 and the results of their operations and their cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of the applicable Financial Regulations and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s Accounting Officer.

9.

In the Court’s opinion, the transactions underlying the annual accounts for the year ended 31 December 2013 were legal and regular in all material respects for four (F4E, Clean Sky, FCH and SESAR) of the seven Joint Undertakings.

10.

As regards the Artemis Joint Undertaking, the audit of project cost claims has been delegated to the national funding authorities (NFAs), under the administrative agreements in force. Artemis received audit reports from the NFAs but did not systematically assess the quality of these audits. Moreover, it had not received information on the audit strategies of all NFAs. It was therefore not in a position to assess whether ex post audits provide sufficient assurance as to the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. As a consequence, the Court concluded that the information available on the implementation of the Joint Undertaking’s ex post audit strategy is not sufficient to conclude whether this key control tool is functioning effectively (4). A qualified opinion (5) was issued for Artemis since there was insufficient appropriate audit evidence on which to base the opinion and the possible effects are considered material but not pervasive (6).

11.

As regards the ENIAC Joint Undertaking, the administrative agreements established between ENIAC and the NFAs of the Member States provide in principle that the NFAs will perform audits on behalf of the Joint Undertaking. The Joint Undertaking’s ex post audit strategy relies heavily on the NFAs to audit project cost claims. In 2013, the Joint Undertaking carried out a limited review of cost claims but this exercise did not include any audits and did not provide assurance as to the regularity of the cost claims reviewed. As a consequence, the Court concluded that the information available on the implementation of the Joint Undertaking’s ex post audit strategy was not sufficient to conclude whether this key control tool is functioning effectively (7). The Court issued a qualified opinion for ENIAC because there was insufficient appropriate audit evidence on which to base the opinion and the possible effects are considered material but not pervasive.

12.

The IMI joint Undertaking launched, in accordance with its ex post audit strategy, a second batch of 40 ex post audits, of which 14 had been completed as of June 2014. The detected error rate resulting from these audits was 2,3 % (8). A qualified opinion was issued for IMI since there was sufficient appropriate audit evidence on which to base the opinion and the possible effects are considered material but not pervasive (9).

13.

As regards F4E, the EU contribution to ITER construction phase was valued by the Council in 2010 (11) at 6,6 billion euro. This amount is subject to significant risks of increase, mainly resulting from changes in the scope of the project deliverables and due to the current schedule which is considered unrealistic. In November 2013, the Joint Undertaking estimated the shortfall until the finalisation of the construction phase of the project to be 290 million euro. The slippage for the construction phase of the project was estimated by the Joint Undertaking at the time of the audit (April 2014) to be at least 30 months. In relation to these risks, the Joint Undertaking has not yet implemented a system at contract level to regularly monitor the cost deviations and has not updated the valuation of the Joint Undertaking contribution to the ITER project beyond the finalisation of the construction phase.

14.

The Court made 55 comments (2012: 45) affecting all Joint Undertakings highlighting matters of importance. An overview of the comments made is provided in Annex II. The most frequent comments are summarised below.

15.

As regards F4E, notes to the accounts on ‘ITER Procurement Arrangements with the ITER International Organization’ (ITER IO) do not disclose the degree of advancement of the works in progress, whereas this information is essential to reflect the status of the activities carried out as regards the procurement arrangements signed with the ITER IO.

16.

Comments under this heading focus on two areas:

17.

Ex post audits are a key tool for Joint Undertakings to ensure the eligibility and accuracy of costs claimed by beneficiaries and/or partners. All have adopted an ex post audit strategy, five of which have contracted out the performance of ex post audits to independent external audit firms. In three cases (see paragraphs 10 to 12), the Court issued a qualified opinion on the basis of the inadequacy of the implementation of the ex post audit strategy or of the error rate resulting from the performance of the ex post audits.

18.

As regards F4E, internal control systems are still being developed. In particular, procurement procedures are central to the implementation of the ITER project by F4E. The competitiveness of these procurement procedures needs to be increased. As regards grants, the average number of proposals received was only one per call, as in 2012.

19.

The monitoring and reporting of research results is laid down in the seventh framework programme (FP7), which establishes a monitoring and reporting system covering the protection, dissemination and transfer of research results. In the grant agreements signed with members and other beneficiaries, the Joint Undertakings have included specific provisions governing intellectual property rights and the dissemination of research activities and results. Although implementation of these provisions is monitored by the Joint Undertaking at different stages of the funded projects, several Joint Undertakings need to develop further the way the results of this monitoring are reported.

20.

The prevention of conflicts of interest is addressed by most Joint Undertakings by the adoption of specific rules and by the development of tools to document all related information. However, Artemis still needs to develop a comprehensive written procedure to deal with conflicts of interest.

21.

The Commission’s Second Interim Evaluation was performed over 2013 and early 2014. It assessed all Joint Undertakings (except F4E) in terms of relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and research quality. The reports, while positive, also highlighted areas for further improvement.

22.

All Joint Undertakings have produced reliable accounts but three have a qualified opinion on their 2013 accounts in respect of the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them.

23.

There is room to improve procedures, in particular the implementation of the ex post audit strategy and, in the case of F4E, cost control mechanisms.