On discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the EU agencies for the financial year 2024

OPINION

The Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following into its proposal for a decision:

General considerations

1. Welcomes the constructive cooperation between the European Parliament and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), illustrated, inter alia, by the annual exchange of views with the Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety (ENVI) and the presentation of the agencies to the Committee in December 2024;

2. Welcomes the strengthened cooperation between ECHA, EFSA and the EEA under the One Health Approach, enabling them to better address challenges to human, animal, plant and environmental health;

3. Expresses its satisfaction that the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has declared the transactions of the Agencies underlying the annual accounts for the financial year 2024 to be legal and regular in all material respects, and that their financial position is fairly represented in all material respects;

4. Welcomes the measures taken by the agencies in light of the European Parliament recommendations in its discharge for the financial year 2023; stresses the importance of maintaining the Agencies’ efforts in terms of cooperation with other agencies and international organisations, for increased digitalisation, and gender balance in management positions;

5. Welcomes the fact that the Agencies took effective corrective actions following most of the 2023 observations from the ECA; takes note of 2024 observations for the Agencies, in particular observations related to budgetary management and carry-overs, and calls on them to ensure an effective follow-up.

Part I – Discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Chemicals Agency for the financial year 2024

6. Acknowledges the crucial role of ECHA in implementing a growing number of Union legislation; notes that in recent years, ECHA has been tasked with additional responsibilities related to new legislation on batteries, drinking water and serious cross- border threats to health; welcomes ECHA’s efforts to address emerging challenges and legislative changes and to support decision-makers;

7. Notes that in 2024, ECHA started the implementation of its new Strategy 2024-2028; expects ECHA to closely monitor the implementation of the new strategy to achieve its full potential;

8. Welcomes the organisational review that ECHA undertook to address the evolving nature and increasing complexity of its tasks and mandates; calls on ECHA to follow-up on the implementation of the recommendations stemming from the review which addressed ways of working, strategic prioritisation and organisation structure; regrets the continued gender imbalance at the middle and senior management levels; welcomes the measures taken by ECHA to increase the number of female applicants but invites ECHA to strengthen its effort to achieve gender balance;

9. Welcomes the good performance of ECHA in implementing its budget, with a 99.5% commitment rate and 0.5% of cancelled payment appropriation rate, and a processing of 99.8% of payments within legal deadlines;

10. Observes that the Agency’s budget relies on collected fees and a contribution from the Union’s general budget; reiterates its call to address the lack of predictability of the ECHA’s fee income and to improve the ECHA’s budgetary certainty by strengthening the governance of ECHA in line with its commitment expressed in the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability;

11. Notes that in 2024, 178 outputs were delivered out of the planned 200; recognises the performance of the ECHA Committees in delivering opinions to the Commission; welcomes the progress made in increasing the capacity of the Committees; notes, however, that difficulties remain in recruiting sufficient experts from Member States to the Scientific Committees which put at risk the committee’s capacities and competence; invites ECHA to continue to review the work of the Committees to ensure that it can meet its existing and future tasks;

12. Underlines the importance of ensuring full transparency of ECHA’s activities; welcomes in this regard ECHA’s efforts to increase public access to information, in particular with the launch of the first version of the ECHA Chem portal, enabling public access to chemical safety information; encourages ECHA to further develop this tool by increasing its visibility and making it as user friendly as possible;

13. Encourages ECHA to continue its efforts in strengthening its relationships with Member States and stakeholders; welcomes in this regard the launch of a new External Communications Strategy and Stakeholder Engagement Approach and the adoption of an Action Plan to increase support to SMEs;

14. Commends the increased collaboration with other EU Agencies and the signature of the One Health framework of action together with EFSA, EMA, the EEA and ECDC; welcomes in particular the continuous cooperation with EFSA, with which a joint guidance on risk assessments on bees from the use of biocides was delivered; invites ECHA to continue to pursue those efforts;

Part II – Discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Environment Agency for the financial year 2024

15. Stresses that the EEA provides sound, independent scientific information on the environment; welcomes the quality of its output released in 2024, such as European Climate Risk, Accelerating the circular economy in Europe, Europe’s state of water 2024 - the need for improve water resilience, Europe’s sustainability transition outlook, Zero pollution monitoring assessment; welcomes the introduction of a flagship approach to selected publications aiming to prioritise and put extra effort into communicating those outputs;

16. Notes that the EEA is tasked with tracking progress towards the 8th Environment Action programme (‘8th EAP’), which builds on the European Green Deal and sets the framework for Union environmental policy until 2030, with a long-term priority objective for 2050 of living well within planetary boundaries; welcomes the release of its second annual monitoring report;

17. Notes that in 2024, EEA’s budget execution rate was of 100% of the annual budget and the delivery rate of key reports and assessments of 97%; commends the high delivery rates for the EEA key performance indicators (KPIs) in 2024 and encourage the EEA to maintain its efforts towards fulfilling its KPIs;

18. Acknowledges the results of the European Commission evaluation of the EEA-Eionet for the period 2017-2021, which was concluded in July 2024, and which found that while the EEA-Eionet has effectively contributed to the development and implementation of EU environmental and climate policies, assessing the efficiency of resource use was challenging due to a lack of adequate monitoring and data; points out that the evaluation also stressed the need to adapt the working procedures to effectively respond to the current complex environmental context; welcomes, in this context, the launch of a revision process of EEA’s KPIs to reflect the outcomes of the EEA-Eionet evaluation 2017-2021;

19. Reiterates its concern that despite the multi-year nature of the EEA’s tasks, an imbalance continues to exist concerning the numbers of permanent versus contractual posts, as well as operational staff versus support staff, leading to a constant need for reskilling as well as an overload of administrative work for scientists; considers that taking into account the substantial increase of workload, and in order to properly perform its tasks, the EEA’s staff number should continue to substantially grow in the years to come;

20. Notes that in 2024, the EEA launched an update of its organisational structure, with the aim of enhancing the Agency's capacity to deliver trusted and actionable knowledge, foster internal collaboration, and improve strategic engagement with stakeholders; notes that this update is based on three objectives: (1) Optimising Work Programme Structure and Service Delivery, (2) Structural Adaptation and Organisational Alignment and (3) Enhancing Management and Leadership Structure; notes that these changes took effect on 1 January 2025; encourages the EEA to closely monitor the implementation of the update;

Part III – Discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Food Safety Authority for the financial year 2024

21. Welcomes EFSA's contribution to the safety of the Union food and feed chain and its considerable efforts in providing risk managers with comprehensive, independent and up-to-date scientific advice on questions linked to the food chain; highlights the need to improve efficiency and transparency in the EFSA’s process architecture and therefore welcomes EFSA’s efforts to adapt its communication strategy to ensure transparency and public engagement in a context of challenging societal changes;

22. Welcomes the continuous involvement of EFSA in the work of the ENVI Committee and more generally its engagement in initiatives related to food safety;

23. Notes that 2024 has been a year of change for EFSA with the renewal of its scientific panels which took effect on 1 July 2024 for a new 5-year term; welcomes the increase of applications received which resulted in the increase in number of suitable experts;

24. Notes with concern that EFSA closed only 550 scientific questions in 2024, below the target of 626 and below the results of 2023 (660); notes that according to EFSA, this decrease can be explained by a number of factors including the renewal of experts in scientific panels, the low quality of application dossiers, especially on novel food, the inconsistent use of submission advice mechanisms by applicants and the increased number of confidentiality requests; highlights the need to address this underachievement and expects EFSA to reach its set targets;

25. Welcomes the improvement in EFSA’s timeliness of adoption, which increased to 89% compared to 85% in the previous year;

26. Takes note that, according to the Annual Strategy Survey launched by EFSA asking for feedback from its customers, partners, and stakeholders who are directly or indirectly involved in the delivery of the EFSA’s scientific opinions, EFSA’s ability to provide its advice in a timely manner remains a point of attention as in the previous years; welcomes the measures taken by EFSA to increase the speed of risk assessment and the inclusion of the ‘increase speed in RA’ in its updated performance framework;

27. Highlights the need for EFSA to develop strong cooperation with all its stakeholders, including the other Agencies for better connection and outputs dissemination; welcomes the cooperation with ECHA for the implementation of the Chemical Strategy for sustainability and the One substance-one assessment approach; welcomes EFSA’s strengthened cooperation with Member States, including with the continued support of focal points;

28. Acknowledges the structural challenges EFSA faces in attracting talents; welcomes the progress made in increasing EFSA’s visibility in the job market to attract a wider and more diverse pool of applicants and invites EFSA to continue and strengthen these efforts;

29. Notes that a new call for the next Executive Director was launched in September 2024; invites EFSA to ensure a smooth transition following the appointment of the new Executive Director;

Conclusion

30. Recommends, based on the facts available, that discharge be granted to the Executive Directors of the Agencies in respect of the implementation of the Agencies’ budget for the financial year 2024.

ANNEX: DECLARATION OF INPUT

The Chair in his capacity as rapporteur for opinion declares under his exclusive responsibility that he did not include in his opinion input from interest representatives falling within the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register, or from representatives of public authorities of third countries, including their diplomatic missions and embassies, to be listed in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.