On discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2022 – Section III, Commission and executive agencies

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SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its proposal for a decision:

1. Is satisfied with the Commission's overall implementation of the budgetary headings for environment, climate action, public health and food safety in 2022;

2. Is satisfied with the work carried out by the five decentralised agencies which are under its remit, which carry out technical, scientific or managerial tasks that help the Union institutions elaborate and implement policies in the area of environment, climate action, public health and food safety, as well as with the way in which those agencies' budgets are implemented; stresses that, given the scale of current and upcoming challenges, sufficient funding must be guaranteed for the agencies and the Commission Directorates-General ('DG') working in the areas of environment, climate action, public health and food safety;

Environment and Climate Action

3. Notes that in 2022, DG Environment's budget reached EUR 567 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 470 million in payment appropriations and that it had 511 members of staff; points out that the appropriations administered directly by DG Environment had implementation rates above 99% at year-end;

4. Notes the fact that the share of payments executed by DG Environment that exceeded legal deadlines increased in 2022 (3,93% compared to 1,51% in 2021);

5. Notes that in 2022, DG Climate Action managed EUR 33,80 million under the title “Climate action” of the Union budget whilst EUR 2 897,4 million was available for the innovation fund; notes also that the DG had 310 members of staff at the end of the year;

6. Notes that preliminary estimates (based on commitment appropriations) of the climate contribution of the main programmes show that 34,8% of the EU budget in 2022 was dedicated to climate action, in line with the Interinstitutional Agreement plans for at least 30 % of 2021-27 MFF to be used for this purpose;

7. Notes the changes made to the Commission’s climate-tracking methodology in 2022 in response to the concerns expressed about the Court's finding in Special Report 09/2022, stating that the reported spending was not always relevant to climate action, that the amount reported as having been spent for that purpose had been overstated by at least EUR 72 billion, meaning that only around 13% of the 2014-2020 budget was spent on climate related purposes;

8. Underlines the importance of proper scrutiny of climate expenditure in the EU budget, and holds the Commission accountable for the implementation of a robust and reliable methodology, in line with the commitments undertaken in the MFF agreement and paragraph 16d of the IIA of 16 December 2020;

9. Calls on the Commission to provide Parliament with an annual report setting out in detail the contribution of each budget item to the climate mainstreaming and the biodiversity targets, in order to facilitate their monitoring; calls further on the Commission to report whether any budget item fails to respect the "do no significant harm" criterion as referred to in the Taxonomy Regulation;

10. Regrets the Court's finding, in its Special Report 16/2021, that EU agricultural funding destined for climate action has not contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions; shares the Court's view that the new Common Agricultural Policy should have a greater focus on reducing agricultural emissions, and be more accountable and transparent about its contribution to climate mitigation;

11. Reiterates its strong concern that the reservation on significant security risks identified in the maintenance and the operation of the Union Registry system of the EU Emissions Trading System, as reported in AARs since 2010, is repeated in DG Climate Action’s 2022 AAR;

Public health, food safety, animal health and welfare, and plant health

12. Highlights the role DG Health and Food Safety continued to play in securing a coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic across the Member States during 2022; recognises the work on the creation of a European Health Union, on making HERA fully operational, on actions under the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, as well as on the implementation of the Farm to Fork Strategy;

13. Notes that, in 2022, DG Health and Food Safety managed a budget in its policy areas of EUR 644,20 million (down from EU 1 162,42 million in 2021, mainly due to a decreased spending on emergency support within the Union) and it had 791 members of staff; notes that the implementation rates of commitments and payments increased to 92,43,% and 90,90%, respectively;

14. Notes that, in 2022, DG Health and Food Safety presented an average residual error rate of 0,7%, which is below the materiality threshold of 2%;

Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA)

15. Notes that HERA, following its establishment as an internal Commission service on 1 October 2021, increased its operations throughout 2022 and that its mission is to support the Commission’s priorities for public health, preparedness and crisis management in the sectors of health, research and innovation and industry;

16. Notes that in 2022, HERA managed expenditures of EUR 438 million and increased its staff from 30 to 80 members;

17. Is of the opinion, on the basis of the data available and the implementation report, that discharge can be granted to the Commission in respect of expenditure in the areas of environmental and climate policy, public health and food safety for the financial year 2022.