On Tuesday, Members of the Budgetary Control Committee (CONT) voted in favour of granting the 2019 budget discharges to most of EU institutions and agencies, except Frontex.

MEPs voted (22 in favour, 3 against and 5 abstentions), to postpone their decision on clearing the account of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (known as Frontex) until additional clarification are brought on a series of issues.

CONT Members stressed “the essential role of the Agency as the cornerstone of the Union’s efforts to safeguard the area of freedom, security and justice and to guarantee the freedom of movement without internal borders checks” and as “the main tool of Union solidarity in that field”. (AM22) However, they also expressed strong concerns as regards the delays in the process of recruitment of the fundamental rights officer and monitors, the significant gender imbalance, in particular at the level of the management board, the reported cases of harassment, and the practice of meeting with representatives of companies that are not listed in the Union transparency register. They also expect clarifications of alleged cases of complicity of the Agency in fundamental rights violations concerning its involvement in migrant’s pushbacks and call for deeper involvement of the Parliament’s Frontex scrutiny group in investigation in this matter.

Next steps

The discharge decision have to be backed by the full Parliament, with a vote scheduled for the April session. As regards Frontex, further clarifications on the controversies are required. If the Agency does not take measures to improve the situation by autumn, Parliament may decide to refuse the discharge.

Background

The discharge procedure is the most important tool for the European Parliament to check how public funds have been spent and EU projects carried out. Parliament has the exclusive right to approve the budget implementation of the EU institutions and agencies for a specific year. The budgetary control committee takes a decision on granting, refusing of postponing discharges based on data provided by the EU Court of Auditors, taking into account the recommendation by the Council and after discussing it with commissioners and other senior EU officials. The Parliament as a whole has to adopt its discharge decisions before 15 May each year.