12 Amendments of Olivier CHASTEL related to 2019/2083(DEC)
Amendment 1 #
Proposal for a decision 1
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Grants the Executive Director of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2018 / Postpones its decision on granting the Executive Director of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Agency for the financial year 2018;
Amendment 5 #
Proposal for a decision 2
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Approves the closure of the accounts of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency for the financial year 2018 / Postpones the closure of the accounts of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency for the financial year 2018;
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Welcomes the fact that the Agency managed to substantially increase its staff from 526 to 630 (an increase of 20 %) in 2018; regrets, however, that the number stayed well below (17 % less than) the 760 staff authorised in the establishment plan for 2018; expresses its concern over the high staff turnover and the continuous difficulties of the Agency to find suitable candidates; acknowledges that the low salary correction coefficient contributes to the problem and therefore welcomes the intention to consider social measures to address this problem; notes in this regard that the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union offer the necessary flexibility for labour market conditions prevailing in the Union to be taken into account when recruiting officials in order to address the specific needs of the institutions; notes that the Court has identified a horizontal trend across agencies in the use of external staff hired in IT consultancy roles; calls for this dependency on external recruitment in this important area to be addressed; notes the Agency's effort to promote its job offers through online communication channels and calls on the Agency to publish vacancy notices on the European Personnel Selection Office website to increase their visibility;
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
Amendment 10 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Nnotes the continuously high level of carry-overs to 2019 (EUR 83 million EUR or 29 %) and cancelled budget carry- overs (EUR 11 million or 12 %), which were linked to the challenges in meeting the establishment plan, the delay in the launch of the building of the new premises and the multi-annual nature of ICT projects and the overestimation of the scale and cost of activities by cooperating countries; expects the Agency and the cooperating states to improve their budget estimates with a view to decrease the carry-overs in 2019; welcomes the fact that the Agency has adopted new rules on whistleblowing, launched a new simplified financing scheme, introduced an ex-post control system covering all types of expenditure and modified its system of ex-ante checks; regrets, however, that the Agency has still not addressed the problem reported by the Court since 2014 with regard to insufficient proof of actual costs for equipment-related expenditure claimed by cooperating Member States; notes the steps taken by the Agency to address this issue but urges the Agency to adequately respond to the comments of the Court given that equipment-related expenditure amounted to EUR 60 million or 35 % of the Agency’s operational expenditure in 2018;
Amendment 18 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. RNotes the lack of information on gender balance within the staff of the Agency; reiterates the persisting significant gender imbalance in the Agency’s management board; urges that this imbalance is remedied as soon as possible; calls therefore on the Agency to proactively remind Member States of the importance of gender balance and on Member States to take gender balance into consideration when nominating their members to the management board;
Amendment 18 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Notes that in the context of the European integrated border management, the largest operational activities were the 12 joint operations at the external land, air and sea borders while the main operational focus in 2018 was on the Central, Eastern and Western Mediterranean areas which experienced the most significant migratory pressure; furthermore, notes thwelcomes the close interagency cooperation, especially in the field of coastguard function but also in the field of customs and law enforcement cooperation; notes that the Agency is working towards setting proper quantitative objectives and specific target values for the joint operations expected to be included in the Single Programming Document 2021-2023;
Amendment 21 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes furthermore from the Court’s report that although the Agency continued further recruitment efforts and increased the number of staff from 526 to 630 in 2018, it still did not achieve the number of 760 staff authorised set out in its 2018 establishment plan; notes the Agency’s reply that a total of 187 vacant posts were filled, but that due to a high internal and external turnover, the net staff increase in 2018 as compared to 2017 was 117 since many posts had become vacant during the year; notes furthermore that the Agency faces challenges in attracting a large number of suitable external candidates and achieving a sound geographical balance mainly due to the low correction coefficient, which is the lowest among all the Union agencies; stresses that agencies located in countries where a low correction coefficient is applied should receive further support from the Commission in implementing complementary measures in order to make them more attractive to current and prospective staff; calls on the Commission to assess the impact and viability of applying salary correction coefficients in the future; notes that the Agency continues to have difficulties in maintaining a desirable sound geographical balance in staff deployed;
Amendment 28 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Notes with appreciation that the Agency participates actively in inter- institutional tenders led by other institutions, and that, in the procurement procedures of the maritime surveillance domain, the Agency seeks cooperation with Union agencies with similar activities and prepares the terms of reference accordingly; notes furthermore that in 2018 the Agency has handled its first Agency’s led inter-institutional tender procedure with the European Fisheries Control Agency;
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Acknowledgppreciates the Agency’s existing measures and ongoing efforts to secure transparency, prevention and management of conflicts of interest, and whistle-blower protection; notes that the whistleblowing policy was adopted on 18 July 2019; welcomes the fact that the Agency provides staff with access to confidential counsellors and trainings concerning whistle-blowing procedures; furthermore, notes that with the aim of being more transparent, the Agency launched a multilingual version of its website in all 24 official languages of the Union and that the communication strategy will be adopted by the end of 2019; regrets however that the Agency publishes statements of commitment, declaring the absence of conflict of interest for the members of the management board, the executive director, and the deputy executive director, and not declarations of interest; recalls that it is not for the members of the management board, the executive director, and the deputy executive director to declare themselves in absence of conflict of interest; calls on the Agency, with the aim to increase transparency, to publish the CVs and declarations of interest for all members of its management board, the executive director, and the deputy executive director, by June 2020;
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Notes with concern from the Court’s report that the Agency does not have a sensitive post policy that would identify sensitive functions, keep them updated and define appropriate measures to mitigate the risks of vested interests; calls on the Agency to adopt and implement such a policy to be in line with the Agency’s internal control standards; acknowledges from the Agency's reply that at the end of 2019 the Agency was finalising the process of adopting a sensitive post policy;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. ObservesWelcomes that, in light of comments and observations from the discharge authority related to the construction of the new headquarters building and the establishment of a European school in Warsaw, that in 2019 an adequate plot of land was attributed to the Agency by the Polish authorities and planning is ongoing to build a purpose- designed premises of the Agency’s headquarters by the end of 2024, and that the board of governors of European schools is to be proposed by Polish authorities in Autumn 2019 to consider accreditation of a Warsaw associate European school of type II, which would be operational partly as from the 2020- 2021 academic year;