Sittings · Document
Report (2025/2145(DEC)) 2026-04-22
Discharge 2024: EU general budget - Commission
22.4.2026 A10-0085/8
Amendment 8
Virginie Joron, Julien Sanchez
on behalf of the PfE Group
Report A10-0085/2026
Daniel Freund
Discharge 2024: EU general budget - Commission
(2025/2145(DEC))
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 a (new)
| Motion for a resolution | Amendment |
| 2 a. Notes that the current system of budgetary conditionality linked to the rule of law is not used to protect the financial interests of the Union, but systematically used to harass certain Member States and interfere in the decisions of their democratically elected governments on the basis of an election and a programme; Considers that this climate of tension and bureaucratic interference in democratic life jeopardises cooperation between Member States and jeopardises the reputation of the Commission among the peoples of Europe; |
Or. en
22.4.2026 A10-0085/9
Amendment 9
Virginie Joron, Julien Sanchez
on behalf of the PfE Group
Report A10-0085/2026
Daniel Freund
Discharge 2024: EU general budget - Commission
(2025/2145(DEC))
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
| Motion for a resolution | Amendment |
| 3 a. Considers that if the European Court of Auditors issues an adverse opinion on the expenditure of the European Commission budget, Parliament should automatically refuse to grant discharge; |
Or. en
22.4.2026 A10-0085/10
Amendment 10
Virginie Joron, Julien Sanchez
on behalf of the PfE Group
Report A10-0085/2026
Daniel Freund
Discharge 2024: EU general budget - Commission
(2025/2145(DEC))
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
| Motion for a resolution | Amendment |
| 7 a. Deplores the scandal of the President of the Commission purchasing 4.6 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines for EUR 71 billion and ordering an additional 146 million doses in 2024 for an unknown amount, while according to Politico, European countries had already admitted in 2024 that they had discarded 215 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines; | |
| - Recalls that the European Commissioner for Health testified before the COVI Special Committee on 27 March 2023 that President Von der Leyen was not involved in any negotiation of a contract for COVID-19 vaccines, contrary to the information published by the New York Times (28 April 2021) and the findings of the European Court of Auditors in its Special Report on the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines; | |
| - Recalls that the Commission required certain Members of Parliament, members of the COVI Committee, to sign a confidentiality undertaking on 30 May 2023 without specifying the end date of this confidentiality obligation concerning an allowance paid per dose by Europeans to Pfizer in exchange for the non-delivery of certain doses still to be delivered; | |
| - Deplores the persistent lack of transparency on the part of the Commission regarding the agreements it has concluded with the pharmaceutical companies responsible for the production of COVID-19 vaccines or Remdesivir, as well as the SMS communications between the President of the Commission and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company to the point that legal action has damaged the reputation of the Commission, when the President could easily have explained herself before Parliament; | |
| - Regrets the Commission’s failure to address the serious side effects of COVID vaccines on victims, particularly concerning medical research and compensation; | |
| - Notes that in the Pfizer case, the Court of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on 17 July 2024 that the Commission did not give the public sufficiently broad access to contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines; | |
| - Notes that in the SMS exchanged with Pfizer case, the Court of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on 14 May 2025 that Commission von der Leyen did not provide a plausible explanation to justify the non-possession of the requested documents or why it considered that the text messages exchanged in the context of the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines did not contain substantial information7a; | |
| - Is surprised that the Commission’s major financial errors in recent years (COVID vaccine contracts, Remdesivir, variable interest rates for the RFF, carbon tax fraud, etc.) have not been proactively investigated either ex ante or ex post to detect possible complicity or negligence; | |
| - Regrets that the Commission keeps prices and contracts secret (even for 2024 contracts) preventing parliamentary scrutiny of contracts; | |
| - Notes the extreme slowness of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in the investigation into the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines and the EPPO’s persistent refusal to answer Members’ questions on the resources dedicated to the investigation or on the timetable or operations carried out complicating Members’ scrutiny of the Commission; | |
| - Regrets that the Commission chose to defend Pfizer rather than the Member States (Hungary, Poland, Romania) in the legal dispute between them over the refusal to order vaccine doses that became unnecessary after the end of the pandemic; | |
| - Notes that in 2026 Pfizer sought and obtained a judgment on a total of approximately EUR 2 billion from those States; Regrets that the Commission paid EUR 53 million7b to Pfizer in 2024; Regrets that the Commission compensated Pfizer for undelivered and possibly unproduced doses; Regrets that the Commission did not carry out any planned audits within 5 years of the signature of the contracts as long as the documents are available on the quality of the lots, the documentation provided by the manufacturers or other elements; | |
| - Requests a follow-up by the Commission in the form of a working group dedicated to the EUR 2 billion penalty imposed by Pfizer on Member States, as well as a final European Court of Auditors (ECA) special report to formally inform Parliament; | |
| _________________ | |
| 7a https://curia.europa.eu/site/upload/docs/application/pdf/2025-05/cp250060fr.pdf | |
| 7b https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/belgian-court-orders-poland-romania-buy-22-billion-pfizer-covid-vaccines-2026-04-01/; https://www.euractiv.com/news/hungary-poland-romania-to-face-pfizer-in-brussels-over-covid-vaccine-contracts/ |
Or. en
22.4.2026 A10-0085/11
Amendment 11
Jorge Buxadé Villalba, Virginie Joron
on behalf of the PfE Group
Report A10-0085/2026
Daniel Freund
Discharge 2024: EU general budget - Commission
(2025/2145(DEC))
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
| Motion for a resolution | Amendment |
| 9. Stresses that Members of the Commission must meet the highest standards of integrity, independence and accountability, both in their current functions and in their previous roles; notes with concern that several senior management positions remained vacant in DG NEAR during the period in which the current Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare was responsible for this Directorate-General in his capacity as Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, and notes that the information provided by the Commission in this regard during the exchange of views with the discharge authority was inaccurate; stresses that the Commission must ensure that all Members of the College meet the standards of integrity, independence and professional conduct required in order to exercise their responsibilities, particularly where those responsibilities involve the management of politically sensitive portfolios and significant Union funds; considers that, taken together, the past serious and prolonged management failures in DG NEAR, the provision of inaccurate information to Parliament in the context of the discharge procedure, and the additional concerns relating to conduct and independence outlined above demonstrate a pattern that is incompatible with the standards of accountability, reliability and sound administration required of a Member of the Commission; | 9. Stresses that Members of the Commission must meet the highest standards of integrity, independence and accountability, both in their current functions and in their previous roles; notes with concern the ongoing judicial investigation in Spain into alleged corruption linked to Forestalia Renovables S.L. and renewable energy authorisations involving senior officials from the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge during the period in which the current Executive Vice-President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition served as Minister responsable for that portfolio; regrets the absence of full and transparent explanations regarding the responsibility arising from those events; considers that, taken together, the political responsibility exercised over that area, the institutional links with senior officials currently under investigation and the lack of public explanations demonstrate a pattern that is incompatible with the standards of accountability, reliability and sound administration required of a Member of the Commission; |
Or. en
22.4.2026 A10-0085/12
Amendment 12
Virginie Joron, Julien Sanchez
on behalf of the PfE Group
Report A10-0085/2026
Daniel Freund
Discharge 2024: EU general budget - Commission
(2025/2145(DEC))
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
| Motion for a resolution | Amendment |
| 11 a. Notes that since the COVID episode, the Commission distanced itself too easily from the Treaties to invent EU competences (housing, elections, health, intelligence, weather, etc.), new taxes, colossal debts or other financial scaffolding that jeopardise the financial health of European households and States in the short and long term; |
Or. en
22.4.2026 A10-0085/13
Amendment 13
Virginie Joron, Julien Sanchez
on behalf of the PfE Group
Report A10-0085/2026
Daniel Freund
Discharge 2024: EU general budget - Commission
(2025/2145(DEC))
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
| Motion for a resolution | Amendment |
| 13 a. Deplores the lack of effective control by the European Commission over the legal status of the NGOs (whether non-profit or otherwise) it finances, and the absence of a ceiling on executive remuneration to distinguish between ‘commercial’ NGOs and genuine solidarity-based NGOs; |
Or. en
22.4.2026 A10-0085/14
Amendment 14
Virginie Joron, Julien Sanchez
on behalf of the PfE Group
Report A10-0085/2026
Daniel Freund
Discharge 2024: EU general budget - Commission
(2025/2145(DEC))
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
| Motion for a resolution | Amendment |
| 14 a. Recalls that grants to NGOs under the EU budget amount to several billion euros per year (estimated at 7.4 billion euros by the European Court of Auditors between 2021 and 2023) of which 3.3 billion euros were received by 30 organisations14a; | |
| - Recalls that the scandals of Qatargate or the fraud of humanitarian aid in Syria14b or via Caritas14c in Luxembourg have revealed that some civil society organisations are catalysts for corruption14d; | |
| - Deplores the lack of effective control by the European Commission and its executive agencies to trace and publish the final beneficiary of the funds it allocates, in particular in the face of the opaque system of cascading grants between NGOs; | |
| - Recalls that many media are subsidised by public or private funds and organise conferences on European policies. The Commission invested EUR 210 million in various media between 2021 and 2027. For example, Euractiv would have received €40 million in 10 years; | |
| - Notes that the European Commission spent EUR 81 million on the communication budget in 2024, the year of the European elections14e; calls on the Commission to avoid any communication expenses during election periods as these funds are not declared to the national electoral authorities; | |
| - Recalls that a resounding report has revealed the shameless embezzlement of taxpayers’ money by the European Commission, which has injected billions into an obscure network of real-false NGOs and media, a veritable propaganda machine to promote its Europhile policies and silence dissenting voices; Is concerned about the acceleration of the Commission’s attempts to combat freedom of expression over the past several years; is concerned that the Commission plans to inject an additional EUR 9 billion through the AgoraEU programme; | |
| _________________ | |
| 14a https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-10-2025-003339_EN.html and https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/publications?ref=SR-2025-11 | |
| 14b https://anti-fraud.ec.europa.eu/media-corner/news/olaf-concludes-investigation-activities-ngo-providing-emergency-assistance-syria-2020-02-07_en | |
| 14c https://www.luxtimes.lu/luxembourg/caritas-missing-millions-may-never-be-recovered-prosecutors-say/79040954.html | |
| 14d https://www.politico.eu/article/aid-agencies-under-olaf-investigation/ | |
| 14e https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FR/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L_202400207 |
Or. en
22.4.2026 A10-0085/15
Amendment 15
Virginie Joron, Julien Sanchez
on behalf of the PfE Group
Report A10-0085/2026
Daniel Freund
Discharge 2024: EU general budget - Commission
(2025/2145(DEC))
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 b (new)
| Motion for a resolution | Amendment |
| 14 b. Calls on the Commission to require NGOs to publish on the landing page of their websites the salaries of their managers, the total amount of European and national funds received, and a summary of activities carried out; Notes that the CEO of Save the Children International received14f an annual salary of $371,235 in 2024 and that the Times newspaper revealed that 7 OXFAM executives received annual salaries in Kenya in excess of £140,000 (€165,000)14g ; | |
| _________________ | |
| 14f https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/TRUSTEES-REPORT-STRATEGIC-REVIEW-AND-FINANCIAL-STATEMENTS-2024.pdf | |
| 14g https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/oxfam-charity-international-finance-salaries-revealed-hj02nc9q5 |
Or. en