17 Amendments of Katalin CSEH related to 2021/2146(DEC)
Amendment 2 #
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 2020 / 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 2020;
Amendment 4 #
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 2020 / Postpones the closure of the accounts of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency for the financial year 2020;
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes the Court’s remark that, for the financial planning of its return operations, the Agency relies on estimates provided by the cooperating countries and that complete and timely availability of this information is crucial; notes the Court’s observation that in 2020 in one case a national authority included two previously unannounced return operations, totalling EUR 355 000, in a grant agreement at the financial closure of the action, resulting in a sudden budgetary deficit for the Agency, that forced the Agency to make an ex-post budgetary commitment, contravening the Agency’s Financial Regulation; acknowledges the dependence of the Agency on cooperating countries and calls on the Agency to be more strict in setting and enforcing standards related to completeness and timeliness for the receipt of information related to financial planning of operations, including the return operations; recalls that rules and principles of the Agency's Financial Regulation must be observed and respected in all situations;
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Recalls the discharge authority’s observations on the application of the unit- cost approach for the deployment of heavy technical equipment and calls on the Agency to inform the discharge authority on the results of the suggested contacts with the Court and the Commission toand to urgently solve the issue of lacking supporting evidence;
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11 a. Recalls that all of the Agency's operations and activities must be conducted in full compliance with Regulation (EU) 2019/1896, as well as the EU Staff and Financial Regulations;
Amendment 63 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 2 a (new)
Subheading 2 a (new)
Fundamental rights and follow up to the 2019 discharge cycle
Amendment 64 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 b (new)
Paragraph 11 b (new)
11 b. Notes with regret that in October 2020, journalistic investigations presented several allegations against the Agency, regarding its possible complicity in illegal migrant pushbacks in the Mediterranean Sea; notes that these allegations were supported by video footage of Frontex assets allegedly participating in such actions;
Amendment 65 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 c (new)
Paragraph 11 c (new)
11 c. Recalls that these revelations have prompted the creation of a Parliament Frontex Scrutiny Working Group (FSWG) in order to investigate the exposed allegations; highlights that the FSWG "did not find conclusive evidence on the direct performance of pushbacks and/or collective expulsions by Frontex in the serious incident cases that could be examined by the FSWG", but concluded "that the Agency found evidence in support of allegations of fundamental rights violations in Member States with which it had a joint operation, but failed to address and follow-up on these violations promptly, vigilantly and effectively"; further notes that the FSWG “found deficiencies in Frontex’s mechanisms to monitor, report and assess fundamental rights situations and developments, and makes concrete recommendations for improvement", but "also identified gaps in the framework of cooperation with Member States, which may hamper the fulfilment of Frontex’s fundamental rights obligations"; notes that the FSWG expressed concern "about the lack of cooperation of the Executive Director to ensure compliance with some of the provisions of the European Border and Coast Guard Regulation, notably on fundamental rights"; notes that the "FSWG takes the position that the Management Board should have played a much more proactive role in acknowledging the serious risk of fundamental rights violations and in taking action to ensure that Frontex fulfils its negative and positive fundamental rights obligations as enshrined in the Regulation";
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 d (new)
Paragraph 11 d (new)
11 d. Reminds that following these findings, Parliament, through its Resolution P9_TA(2021)0442 on the 2019 Discharge for the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, decided to place a part of the Agency's 2022 budget in a reserve, to be released upon completion of six conditions; regrets that following negotiations for the 2022 budget this reserve was not implemented; reiterates however its previous position that failure to fulfill these conditions increased the risk for refusal of discharge for the 2020 financial year;
Amendment 67 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 e (new)
Paragraph 11 e (new)
11 e. Notes that, with respect to the six conditions established by the European Parliament in its previous resolution, the Agency has made so far the following progress: a) the 20 Fundamental Rights Monitors (FRM) posts available at AD level remain vacant and are to be filled in 2022;notes that this process is under the control of the Fundamental Rights Officer (FRO), conducted independently from the office of the Executive Director;welcomes the cooperation between Frontex and the EU Fundamental Rights Agency in this recruitment; b) all three deputy executive directors have been recruited and have joined the Agency; c) the Executive Director signed the Standard Operating Procedure on the mechanism to withdraw the financing of, or suspend or terminate, or not launch Frontex activities, in accordance with Article 46 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1896;notes however that the Agency continues to operate in Hungary;acknowledges that additional safeguards have been put in place and all requests from Hungary for support are assessed on a case-by-case basis; d) the Executive Director signed, in April 2021, the Standard Operating Procedure on the Serious Incident Report mechanism;notes that a report on the practical implementation of this procedure has been presented by the Executive Director and the FRO, concluding that there is a need to further revise the procedure; e) the Agency has adopted special rules to guarantee the independence of the FRO, it has recruited and adopted a new FRO as well as a deputy FRO;notes that the Agency has drawn up a Fundamental Rights Strategy and Action Plan, it has adopted a specialised fundamental rights training curriculum for FRMs and has also revised its complaints mechanism;underlines however that the recruitment of the 40 FRMs, due for December 2020, is still ongoing; f) the Agency has completed the implementation of a competency management project and has adopted a value-adding knowledge management and need-to-know policy, while the implementation of the Situational Awareness and Monitoring Division’s Transformation Programme and a Human Resources capacity assessment are still in progress;
Amendment 68 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 2 b (new)
Subheading 2 b (new)
OLAF investigation
Amendment 69 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 f (new)
Paragraph 11 f (new)
11 f. Recalls the fact that the European Anti-Fraud Office has initiated an investigation on the Agency over allegations of harassment, misconduct and migrant pushbacks; highlights that the investigation was finalised on 15 February 2022 and its outcome was partially presented to the Members of the Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee and Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on 28 February 2022, but has not yet been provided to the Members; further highlights that Members were only informed of the outcome through an oral presentation, without providing any supporting written materials; underlines that the findings exposed in this partial presentation raise serious concerns and do not provide sufficient information to support a decision on granting discharge to the Agency for the financial year 2020;
Amendment 77 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
Amendment 86 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Notes from the Agency’s replies to the Parliament’s written questions that in total 17 cases of harassment were reported to the Agency’s competent entities in 2020; calls on the Agency to carefully assess each case, taking a zero-tolerance approach to psychological or sexual harassment; welcomes the training received by the confidential counsellors and the actions undertaken to raise awareness among staff and inform staff on the confidential counsellors; welcomes the online awareness-raising sessions for executive, senior, and middle managers and team leaders, and that dedicated awareness sessions were organised to staff members that signed up for such sessions; calls on the Agency to inform the discharge authority about the outcome of these cases;
Amendment 93 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 a (new)
Paragraph 22 a (new)
22 a. Notes the establishment and operationalisation of the Agency's transparency register; calls on the Agency to comply with the highest standards of transparency and to have the transparency register regularly updated;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
25. Notes the Court’s finding that on 1 September 2020 the Agency asked the Commission for permission to upgrade 100 AST posts into advanced-level posts (grade AD 7 or higher), for the standing corps and new tasks under the new mandate; notes that the Agency, in anticipation of the Commission’s reply, on 9 September 2020, sent out 47 offers to advanced-level candidates with the Commission informing the Agency that it had no legal authority to upgrade the posts, resulting in the Agency immediately withdrawing the 47 job offers; acknowledges the actions undertaken by the Agency to achieve the required clarity on its establishment plan from the Commission and the pressing nature of the required recruitmentsrecalls that this has exposed the Agency at an unnecessary risk of reputational damage and litigation; calls on the Agency and the Commission to improve their communication, closer aligning the Agency’s actions with the Commission’s decision-making processes to avoid such situations from re-occurring;
Amendment 96 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30
Paragraph 30