The European Parliament decided to grant discharge to the Executive Director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (now the Innovative Health Initiative Joint Undertaking) in respect of the implementation of its budget for the financial year 2020 and approve the closure of the Joint Undertaking’s accounts.

Noting that the Court of Auditors found that the annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2020 present fairly the financial situation of the Joint Undertaking on 31 December 2020, as well as the results of its operations, Parliament adopted, by 572 votes to 37 with 37 abstentions, a resolution containing a series of observations which form an integral part of the discharge decision.

Budgetary and financial management

The final IMI2 Joint Undertaking available budget for 2020, including re-entered unused appropriations of previous years, assigned revenues, and reallocations to the next year, was EUR 276 538 561 in commitment appropriations (of which EUR 269 829 327 from the Union budget) and EUR 241 559 114 in payment appropriations (of which EUR 232 349 880 from the Union budget). The budget execution of the commitment appropriations and the payment appropriations reached 98.66 % and 97.08 %, respectively.

Members noted that out of the EUR 1 billion of contributions to be made by private members to operational activities of the IMI Joint Undertaking, by the end of 2020 the IMI Joint Undertaking had reported and validated in-kind and cash contributions of EUR 759 471 000 from private members, of which EUR 737 573 000 in-kind and EUR 21 898 000 in cash contributions. During 2020, 11 projects were running under the IMI Joint Undertaking, of which 3 had ended by 31 December 2020.

The IMI Joint Undertaking utilisation rate for payment appropriations for the Seventh Framework Programme projects was 96 %.

The Joint Undertaking concluded 19 new signed grant agreements, including 8 projects for the emergency call for proposals on coronavirus treatments and diagnostics.

Once again, Parliament called for a harmonisation of the calculation of in-kind contributions to the Joint Undertaking.

Other observations

The resolution also contains a series of observations on performance, staff and internal controls.

In particular, it noted the following:

- the IMI2 Joint Undertaking launched a fast-track call for proposals on coronavirus treatments and diagnostics, resulting in 8 projects. The Undertaking also launched three additional calls for proposals relating to topics such as rare diseases, infectious diseases, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and autoimmune diseases;

- 19 new grant agreements for projects were signed with a total combined budget of over EUR 380 million, bringing the total IMI2 Joint Undertaking’s portfolio to 167 projects;

- an important contribution to the common European response to the COVID-19 pandemic was made by the Undertaking and it reallocated EUR 45 million of its 2020 budget to a fast-track call for proposals launched in March 2020;

- the issue of intellectual property rights needs to be addressed in all contracts;

- on 31 December 2020, 53 of the 56 positions in the staff establishment plan of the IMI2 Joint Undertaking were occupied, five positions were filled during 2020, three for temporary agents and two for contract agents;

- IMI2 set up reliable ex-ante control procedures for financial and operational desk reviews;

- systemic errors were found in the personnel costs declared by beneficiaries, in particular on the part of SMEs and new beneficiaries. Therefore, Parliament called on the Joint Undertaking should strengthen its internal control systems, given that SMEs and new beneficiaries are more error-prone.