On discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2022

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SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Transport and Tourism calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1. Welcomes the Court of Auditors’ findings that the transactions underlying Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking ('JU') for the financial year 2022 are, in all material respect, legal and regular;

2. Welcomes the successful commencement of the activities by Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking (EU-Rail) in the end of 2021, established under the Horizon Europe programme (2021-2022) as the universal successor to the Shift2 Rail Joint Undertaking (S2R) in 2022;

3. Notes that the estimated total value of the activities in 2022 amounts to EUR 102.4 million (of which EUR 90 million from Members other than the EU);

4. Commends the pivotal milestones achieved by the S2R Programme by the end of 2022, with full commitment of resources and about 86% of the Programme realized (91% in financial execution for 2023);

5. Notes the JU’s final annual budget for 2022 was EUR 171.4 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 180.8 million in payment appropriations; notes that the implementation rate was 100 % for the former and 79.1 % for the latter;

6. Notes that, with regard to the provisional accounts of EU-Rail no audit certificate on 2022 IKOP/IKAA was received; awaits validation of 2022 IKOP following project cost submissions in February 2023;

7. Notes that, in 2022 the cumulative value of activities awarded by EU-Rail to S2R for Research and Innovation activities amount to EUR 619.4 million and realised for EUR 92 million;

8. Welcomes the JU’s commitment to facilitate research and innovation activities for an integrated European railway network, ensuring interoperability sustainability, and resilience;

9. Proposes that Parliament grants discharge to the Executive Director of the Undertaking for the financial year 2022 budget implementation.