Committee on Budgetary Control

Discharge

Article 276 of the Treaty provides that "the European Parliament, acting on a recommendation from the Council which shall act by a qualified majority, shall give discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget..."

This task constitutes the bulk of the work in the Budgetary Control Committee: the main power is the committee's recommendation to the plenary regarding the decision to grant, postpone or to refuse discharge. In this way MEPs can express their approval or disapproval of the way EU funds have been spent. The Commission must act upon any comments or recommendations in Parliament's resolution.

The most important instrument on which COCOBU's (and Parliament's) assessment is based is the work of the European Court of Auditors. The Court conducts independent audits of the collection and spending of EU funds. It assesses the way in which the Union's institutions and agencies carry out their tasks and examines whether financial operations have been properly recorded, legally and regularly executed and managed.

The discharge procedure first and foremost concerns the Commission which is responsible for implementing the EU Budget. It equally concerns the Parliament, other Institutions (Council, Court of Auditors and Court of Justice among others), the Agencies and the European Development Fund. The Commissioners responsible for different policy areas and the representatives of other Institutions and the Agencies are invited to give a statement before the committee and to answer questions regarding the implementation of the budget. The discharge procedure covers the period from October of a given year to April of the following year.

In other words, discharge is a Parliament decision that reflects its conclusions at the end of a process, the discharge procedure, on the way the Commission has carried out its task of implementing the expenditure authorised in the budget of the financial year n. Parliament's decision on this issue is taken every year (in principle, in April). This process of parliamentary scrutiny of the Commission's implementation of the budget appropriations - the taxpayer's money- is aimed at ensuring that they were used in accordance with the principle of sound financial management, namely in accordance with the principles of "economy", "efficiency" and "effectiveness".