Discharge 2024: General budget of the EU - Agencies

OPINION

The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following into its motion for a resolution:

– having regard to the European Court of Auditors’ Annual report on EU agencies for the financial year 2024,

– having regard to the Eurofound's Consolidated Annual Activity report 2024,

– having regard to the Cedefop's Consolidated Annual Activity report 2024,

– having regard to the ETF's Consolidated Annual Activity report 2024,

– having regard to the EU-OSHA's Consolidated Annual Activity report 2024,

– having regard to the ELA's Consolidated Annual Activity report 2024,

General comments

1. Expresses its satisfaction that the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has declared the transactions underlying the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), the European Training Foundation (ETF), and the European Labour Authority (ELA) annual accounts for the financial year 2024 to be overall legal and regular, and that their financial position as at 31 December 2024 is fairly represented;

2. Appreciates the high-quality work performed by the agencies working in the area of employment, social affairs and inclusion and stresses the importance, autonomy and added value of the five agencies in their field of expertise; welcomes the continued and the growing cooperation among the five agencies and their closer collaboration with other EU bodies, enhancing coherence and complementarity while avoiding overlaps; further welcomes that this cooperation has become more structured and resulted in more joint initiatives; takes note of the Commission evaluation in 2024 of four EU agencies Eurofound, Cedefop, ETF and EU-OSHA, demonstrating more effective cooperation between the Agencies, and a higher level of coherence thereof; welcomes the joint action plan defining the actions the four agencies will take together to follow up on the recommendations of the evaluation;

3. Calls on the Commission to make better use of the expertise and analytical capacity of the agencies regarding employment and social affairs, stressing that relying on their in-house knowledge would increase coordination and the efficient use of Union budget resources; stresses the unused potential in providing specific, relevant information and the same quality products as external consultants, when their mandates allow it;

4. Notes the Court’s observations for agencies concern shortcomings in public procurement procedures, management and control systems and budgetary management and that weaknesses in public procurement procedures remain the largest source of irregular payments;

5. Acknowledges that consequences of the exceptionally high inflation rates in 2022 and 2023, together with rising staff, utility and service costs, have significantly reduced the share of funding available for core operational activities in 2024; notes that this situation, particularly for agencies with expanding mandates, risks undermining their ability to effectively deliver on their missions; stresses the importance of safeguarding the agencies’ business continuity by periodically reviewing the adequacy of their operational budgets to ensure they are commensurate with their tasks and with a sufficient number of staff; recognises that the agencies’ flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances has helped them to deliver on their mandates despite shrinking operational budgets; reminds that expanding mandates must be simultaneously supported by adequate financial resources;

6. Stresses the importance of all the agencies for their ongoing commitment to integrating environmental responsibility into their operations and decision-making; welcomes further steps to put in place a formal environmental management system by those agencies which do not have it as yet;

7. Reminds that horizontal principles, such as gender equality, should be integral to the budgeting, operations, policies and programmes of the agencies: welcomes their efforts in this respect; calls for comprehensive gender responsive budgeting to be put in place to monitor and measure gender budget allocations;

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound)

8. Appreciates the Foundation’s continued high-quality work to enhance and disseminate knowledge and to provide evidence-based expertise supporting the development of better-informed social, employment and work-related policies in Europe; highly values its expertise on topics relevant to the European Pillar of Social Rights including the Directives on transparent and predictable working conditions, on work–life balance for parents and carers, on adequate minimum wages, on improving working conditions in platform work, and on pay transparency, as well as the European Child Guarantee; welcomes Eurofound’s key research in policy-relevant areas, including its 2024 work on the unaffordable and inadequate housing in Europe, adequate minimum wages, poverty, income inequality and the middle class, labour shortages and the political dimension of social cohesion in Europe; welcomes Eurofound’s involvement in the European Parliament elections campaign to raise voting awareness;

9. Welcomes the ECA’s positive opinion on the Foundation’s annual accounts and invites the Foundation to address the ECA’s recommendations;

10. Highlights the 15.1 % carry-over rate of non-differentiated appropriations, representing a continued issue although a decrease compared with the previous year, and takes note of the Foundation’s clarification distinguishing between planned and unplanned carry-overs, the former being linked to multiannual projects and not creating budgetary uncertainties; encourages the Agency to continue its efforts to further reduce unplanned carry-over rates in the coming years;;

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA)

11. Appreciates the Agency’s activities to develop, gather and provide reliable and relevant information, analyses and tools to advance knowledge, raise awareness and exchange occupational safety and health (OSH) that contribute also to the development of EU legislation in this field; Values the information and good practice in order to promote healthy and safe workplaces in Europe in particular their work on the health and social care sector and psychosocial risks at the workplace; recalls the importance of safety and health at work, which cannot be put at risk by increased inflation and cost of living; calls on all EU agencies to meet the highest standards of OSH; welcomes its 2024 achievements, including the publication of Occupational Safety and Health overviews on cardiovascular diseases and psychosocial risks, progress in research in the health and social care sector, and the completion of fieldwork for the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks and new OiRA tools;

12. Welcomes the Agency’s performance in 2024, achieving 99% budget implementation and 93% work programme implementation; takes note of the new strategy adopted by EU-OSHA at the end of 2024, ensuring the ability of its services to respond to new needs and challenges in the field; underlines the important role of the Agency in providing data to other research services, such as the EPRS;

13. Welcomes the ECA’s positive opinion on the Agency’s annual accounts and invites the Agency to address the ECA’s observations, in particular concerning management and control systems;

14. Notes with concern the high carry-over rate of 22.6 %, which has improved compared with the previous year but remains well above the 15 % benchmark; recalls that recurrently high carry-over rates undermine the budgetary principle of annuality; takes note of the Agency’s clarification distinguishing between planned and unplanned carry-overs, the former being linked to multiannual projects and not creating budgetary uncertainties; welcomes the measures taken by EU-OSHA to strengthen its budgetary planning process and encourages the Agency to continue its efforts to further reduce unplanned carry-over rates in the coming years;

15. Acknowledges with appreciation the progress made by EU-OSHA in reducing late payments compared with 2023 through the implementation of an action plan;

European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop)

16. Appreciates Cedefop’s research, analyses and technical expertise in vocational education and training (VET), qualifications and skills policies; welcomes its 2024 achievements, including the expansion of its skills intelligence portfolio, support for inclusion, and analysis of key VET policy developments in Member States; highlights in particular the first EU-wide AI skills survey and the launch of the Labour and Skills Shortage Index (CLSSI) and the Short-Term Anticipation of Skill Trends (STAS);

17. Welcomes the ECA’s positive opinion on the Agency’s annual accounts and invites the Agency to address the ECA’s observations, in particular regarding the increase in the share of late payments compared with 2023;

18. Commends Cedefop for its exemplary commitment (100%) and payment (98.89%) appropriations rates successfully demonstrating the optimal use of resources entrusted to Cedefop;

19. Encourages Cedefop to promptly amend its internal rules to ensure that Greek seconded national experts required to relocate to Thessaloniki are eligible for daily subsistence allowances, in line with principle of equal treatment;

European Training Foundation (ETF)

20. Appreciates the ETF’s contribution to strengthening human capital in the EU’s neighbouring countries, while often operating in a challenging geopolitical context; acknowledges its key role in enhancing employability through reforms in education, vocational training, skills, lifelong learning and labour market systems; appreciates its focus on the green and digital transition and skills anticipation, development and validation as horizontal issues; notes that 2024 marked the 30th anniversary of the Foundation, celebrating three decades of expertise and partnership in promoting inclusive and effective education and skills development;

21. Welcomes the ECA’s positive opinion on the Agency’s annual accounts and invites the ETF to address the ECA’s observations, in particular regarding the increase in the share of late payments compared with 2023;

22. Notes the ETF’s corrective actions to address irregularities identified in open procurement procedures from previous years’ audit exercises;

23. Underlines the ETF’s progress in improving gender balance, with women now representing 57 % of managers, and acknowledges efforts to enhance geographical balance;

European Labour Authority (ELA)

24. Appreciates the Authority’s work to assist Member States and the Commission in ensuring a fair and effective enforcement of Union rules on labour mobility and coordination of social security systems, including by supporting 117 joint concerted inspections (CJIs) in 2024, in facilitating effective labour mobility in Europe through European Employment Services (EURES) activities, and to raising awareness, through training and information campaigns, notably #FairHORECAinEU and #Road2FairTransport, about the rights and obligations of workers and employers in mobile sector, making it easier for citizens and businesses to reap the benefits of the internal market; welcomes that the Authority entered its first year at full operational capacity in 2024, enabling it to fully implement its mandate across all areas of activity;

25. Commends the Agency for achieving 95% of its annual workplan, while considerably increasing its activities from the previous year, including a 54% increase in concerted and joint inspections; calls for further support to ELA, including financial resources, to ensure its added value to national enforcement authorities, and to enable it to initiate and conduct inquiries of cross-border cases on its own initiative;

26. Expresses its satisfaction with the overall positive opinion of the ECA on the Authority’s accounts; notes, however, that the ECA issued a qualified opinion on the legality and regularity of payments, as it did in 2023;

27. Takes note in this context of the ECA’s qualification regarding payments amounting to EUR 2.6 million made in 2024, representing 5.7 % of the total payment appropriations and exceeding the materiality threshold; point out that these payments were linked to a contract awarded through an open procedure previously assessed as irregular in the 2022 report (EUR 2.2 million), as well as to shortcomings identified in ex-ante checks related to contract implementation (EUR 0.4 million);

28. Recognises the progress achieved in reducing the number of temporary staff (seconded national experts and interim workers) since 2022, when they represented 58 % of the workforce; regrets, however, that their proportion remained high at 47 % in both 2023 and 2024; encourages ELA and the Commission to continue increasing the share of permanent staff by creating the possibility to convert SNEs in temporary staff posts;

29. Notes with satisfaction that in 2024 the Authority reduced its carry-over rate to 15 %, reflecting improved budget implementation and financial planning; takes note of certain shortcomings in budgetary management, such as late payment interest on 11.8 % of payment requests and the incorrect booking of a budgetary amendment of EUR 266 861;

Conclusion

30. Asks the Agencies and the Commission to implement as soon as possible all outstanding ECA's recommendations;

31. Recommends, based on the facts available, that discharge be granted to the Executive Directors of the Eurofound, EU-OSHA, the CEDEFOP, the ETF, and the ELA in respect of the implementation of the Authorities’ budget for the financial year 2024.

ANNEX: DECLARATION OF INPUT

Pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure, the rapporteur for opinion declares that she included in her opinion input on matters pertaining to the subject of the file that she received, in the preparation of the opinion, from the following interest representatives falling within the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register, or from the following representatives of public authorities of third countries, including their diplomatic missions and embassies:

The list above is drawn up under the exclusive responsibility of the rapporteur for opinion.

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