Skip to content
DRAFT REPORT (2025/2147(DEC))

On discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2024, Section II – European Council and Council

CONT-PR-778049

Committee on Budgetary Control · Rapporteur: Pasquale Tridico

Official HTML ↗ PDF DOCX
✦ In shortFull text
✦ In short · AI summary of this text, generated 4 Sept 2026

Written by a language model from the full text only; every figure comes from the text. The paragraph links open the paragraph a statement rests on — check the text itself before relying on it.

This draft report concerns the discharge procedure for the European Council and Council budget for 2024. It proposes granting discharge to the Secretary-General of the Council, but also includes a resolution with observations and demands. The report regrets the Council's continued refusal to cooperate with Parliament in the discharge procedure since 2009, preventing informed scrutiny. It calls for the Council to resume negotiations and engage with Parliament. It demands transparency measures, including publishing travel expenses of senior officials, disclosing consultancy contracts over EUR 50,000, and making the transparency register mandatory for Permanent Representations. It also calls for treaty reforms to give Parliament explicit competence to grant discharge to all institutions individually and to revise Article 319 TFEU accordingly.

Committee position. The rapporteur proposes to grant discharge to the Secretary-General of the Council for the 2024 budget, while setting out observations in a resolution that criticizes the Council's lack of cooperation and demands transparency and accountability improvements.

Key points

  1. Proposes to grant discharge to the Secretary-General of the Council for implementing the 2024 budget, with observations in the resolution.
  2. Regrets that since 2009 the Council has refused to cooperate in the discharge procedure, preventing Parliament from taking an informed decision.
  3. Notes that the Council did not answer Parliament's questionnaire of 103 questions and did not participate in the hearing of 6 November 2025.
  4. Calls for legal and procedural amendments to withhold budgetary appropriations from institutions that fail to comply with transparency obligations.
  5. Calls on the Council to resume negotiations with Parliament at the highest level and to provide opinions from legal services on Treaty-based solutions.
  6. Regrets the Council's appointment procedures that ignore views of interested parties and OLAF recommendations, and insists on reviewing its prerogative.
  7. Calls on the Council to address gender imbalance among Court of Justice members by requiring at least two candidates of different genders per member state.
  8. Calls on rotating Council Presidencies to stop using corporate sponsorship and to make the Guidance binding, providing a budget for presidencies.
  9. Calls for targeted treaty reforms to enhance democratic decision-making and transparency within the European Council.
  10. Calls on the Council to publish annual breakdowns of travel and representation expenses of senior officials and to disclose all consultancy contracts exceeding EUR 50,000.
  11. Calls on the Council to provide information on gender balance, geographical distribution, and disabilities of staff, and to promote geographical balance.
  12. Urges the Council to implement Ombudsman recommendations and CJEU rulings on transparency, and to disclose legislative documents promptly.

Who is affected

  • The Council and its General Secretariat, which must cooperate with Parliament and implement transparency measures.
  • The rotating Council Presidencies, which are called to stop using corporate sponsorship.
  • Member States' Permanent Representations, which are urged to participate in the mandatory transparency register.
  • Senior officials of the Council, who would face stricter post-term employment rules and public disclosure of meetings.

Figures and deadlines

  • Council budget for 2024: EUR 676,881,123, an increase of 4.47% compared to 2023.
  • Implementation rates in 2024: 96.40% for commitments, 87.95% for payments.
  • Approximately EUR 24 million in appropriations were cancelled at the end of 2024.
  • Appropriations carried over from 2024 to 2025 totalled EUR 78.6 million.
  • Three budgetary transfers totalled approximately EUR 12.8 million.
  • Mission expenses decreased by 18.50% to approximately EUR 4.3 million in 2024.
  • Travel expenses of delegations decreased by 2.61% to approximately EUR 14.9 million in 2024.
  • Secretariat employed 3,124 staff at the end of 2024.

Legal basis: Article 319 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union