On discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for the financial year 2021

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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. Notes that the core budget of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (the ‘Centre’) for 2022 was to EUR 99,9 million (the 40% decrease compared to 2021 being due to changes in HERA grants) and that 96,6% of the total revenue derives from the Union budget;

2. Notes that during the year 2022, the overall budget execution in terms of commitment appropriations was 98,86% (representing an decrease of 0,49% compared to 2021), while, in terms of payments, budget execution increased by 9,5% compared to 2021 and reached 73,61% of the total 2022 budget;

3. Notes that the additional posts allocated to the Centre following the extension of the Centre’s mandate have been filled in 2022; underlines the necessity of ensuring adequate staffing reflecting the needs of the new tasks and the Centre’s increased workload to maintain the quality of the Centre’s work;

4. Welcomes the Centre’s modalities for the implementation of the reinforced mandate of ECDC which came into force in December 2022, as well as the transformation programme ASPIRE (Anticipate, Support, Prepare, Inform, Respond and Empower) developed to aid the implementation;

5. Notes that in 2022, the Centre maintained its public health emergency (PHE) plan in response to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, which, due to the relatively stable epidemiological situation, was downgraded to ‘maintenance phase’ in June 2022; notes that ECDC’s pandemic-related workload remained high throughout the year, although the focus shifted towards longer-term monitoring, prevention and control of SARS-CoV-2;

6. Notes that the Centre simultaneously operated two additional PHEs in 2022, for monkey pox and hepatitis of unknown origin, which put severe demands on the Centre’s expert capacity to cover the activities required for all three emergencies;

7. Notes that additional unforeseen tasks for the Centre arose following the Russian aggression in Ukraine, when the Centre supported Member States by actively coordinating and delivering technical and operational response activities related to the influx of refugees;

8. Notes that the Centre delivered 89% of the outputs programmed for 2022 under the Centre’s Strategy 2021-2027, including the update of its Surveillance Atlas of Infectious Diseases and Annual Epidemiological Report chapters, the new ECDC surveillance portal EpiPulse, and the publication of 210 scientific outputs as well as 65 peer-reviewed articles;

9. Calls on the Commission to grant to the Centre the necessary resources to fulfil the objectives of the Strategy 2021-2027 and to implement the Centre’s revised founding Regulation;

10. Recommends, based on the facts available, that discharge be granted to the Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in respect of the implementation of the Centre's budget for the financial year 2022.