Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council (repealed)Show full title

TITLE X EXTERNAL AUDIT AND DISCHARGE

CHAPTER 1 External audit

Article 158 External audit by the Court of Auditors

The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission shall inform the Court of Auditors, as soon as possible, of all decisions and rules adopted pursuant to Articles 13, 16, 21, 25, 26, 29 and 40.

Article 159 Rules and procedure on the audit

1. The examination by the Court of Auditors of whether all revenue has been received and all expenditure incurred in a lawful and proper manner shall have regard to the Treaties, the budget, this Regulation, the delegated acts adopted pursuant to this Regulation and all other acts adopted pursuant to the Treaties.

2. In the performance of its task, the Court of Auditors shall be entitled to consult, in the manner provided for in Article 161, all documents and information relating to the financial management of departments or bodies with regard to operations financed or co-financed by the Union. It shall have the power to hear any official responsible for a revenue or expenditure operation and to use any of the auditing procedures appropriate to the aforementioned departments or bodies. The audit in the Member States shall be carried out in liaison with the national audit institutions or, where they do not have the necessary powers, with the competent national departments. The Court of Auditors and the national audit institutions of the Member States shall cooperate in a spirit of trust while maintaining their independence.

In order to obtain all the necessary information for the performance of the task entrusted to it by the Treaties or the acts adopted pursuant to them, the Court of Auditors may be present, at its request, during the audit operations carried out within the framework of the implementation of the budget by, or on behalf of, any institution.

At the request of the Court of Auditors, each institution shall authorise financial institutions holding Union deposits to enable the Court of Auditors to ensure that external data tally with the accounts.

3. In order to perform its task, the Court of Auditors shall notify the institutions and authorities to which this Regulation applies of the names of the members of its staff who are empowered to audit them.

Article 160 Checks on securities and cash

The Court of Auditors shall ensure that all securities and cash on deposit or in hand are checked against vouchers signed by the depositories or against official memoranda of cash and securities held. It may carry out such checks itself.

Article 161 Court of Auditors' right of access

1. The Commission, the other institutions, the bodies administering revenue or expenditure on the Union's behalf and recipients shall afford the Court of Auditors all the facilities and give it all the information which the Court of Auditors considers necessary for the performance of its task. They shall place at the disposal of the Court of Auditors all documents concerning the award and performance of contracts financed by the budget and all accounts of cash or materials, all accounting records or supporting documents, and also administrative documents relating thereto, all documents relating to revenue and expenditure, all inventories, all organisation charts of departments, which the Court of Auditors considers necessary for auditing the budgetary and financial outturn report on the basis of records or on the spot auditing and, for the same purposes, all documents and data created or stored electronically.

The internal audit bodies and other services of the national administrations concerned shall afford the Court of Auditors all the facilities which it considers necessary for the performance of its task.

2. The officials whose operations are checked by the Court of Auditors shall:

(a) show their records of cash in hand, any other cash, securities and materials of all kinds, and also the supporting documents in respect of their stewardship of the funds with which they are entrusted, and also any books, registers and other documents relating thereto;

(b) present the correspondence and any other documents required for the full implementation of the audit referred to in Article 159(1).

The information supplied under point (b) of the first subparagraph may be requested only by the Court of Auditors.

3. The Court of Auditors shall be empowered to audit the documents in respect of the revenue and expenditure of the Union which are held by the departments of the institutions and, in particular, by the departments responsible for decisions in respect of such revenue and expenditure, the bodies administering revenue or expenditure on the Union's behalf and the natural or legal persons receiving payments from the budget.

4. The task of establishing that the revenue has been received and the expenditure incurred in a lawful and proper manner and that the financial management has been sound shall extend to the utilisation, by bodies outside the institutions, of Union funds received by way of contributions.

5. Union financing paid to recipients outside the institutions shall be subject to the agreement in writing by those recipients or, failing agreement on their part, by contractors or subcontractors, to an audit by the Court of Auditors into the use made of the financing granted.

6. The Commission shall provide the Court of Auditors, at its request, with any information on borrowing-and-lending operations.

7. Use of integrated computer systems shall not have the effect of reducing access by the Court of Auditors to the supporting documents.

Article 162 Annual report of the Court of Auditors

1. The Court of Auditors shall transmit to the Commission and the institutions concerned by 30 June, any observations which are, in its opinion, such that they should appear in the annual report. Those observations shall remain confidential and shall be subject to an adversarial procedure. Each institution shall address its reply to the Court of Auditors by 15 October. The replies of institutions other than the Commission shall be sent to the Commission at the same time.

2. The annual report shall contain an assessment of the soundness of financial management.

3. The annual report shall contain a section for each institution. The Court of Auditors may add any summary report or general observations which it sees fit to make.

The Court of Auditors shall take all necessary steps to ensure that the replies of each institution to its observations are published next to or after each observation to which they relate.

4. The Court of Auditors shall transmit to the authorities responsible for giving discharge and to the other institutions, by 15 November, its annual report accompanied by the replies of the institutions and shall ensure publication thereof in the Official Journal of the European Union.

5. As soon as the Court of Auditors has transmitted the annual report, the Commission shall immediately inform the Member States concerned of the details of that report which relate to management of the funds for which they are responsible under the applicable rules.

Following receipt of such information, the Member States shall reply to the Commission within 60 days. The Commission shall transmit a summary of that information to the Court of Auditors, the European Parliament and the Council by 28 February.

Article 163 Special reports of the Court of Auditors

1. The Court of Auditors shall transmit to the institution or the body concerned any observations which are, in its opinion, such that they should appear in a special report. Those observations shall remain confidential and shall be subject to an adversarial procedure.

The institution or the body concerned shall inform the Court of Auditors, within two and a half months of transmission of those observations, of any replies it wishes to make in relation to those observations.

The Court of Auditors shall adopt the definitive version of the special report the month following receipt of the replies made by the institution or body concerned.

The special reports, together with the replies of the institutions or bodies concerned, shall be transmitted without delay to the European Parliament and the Council, each of which shall decide, where appropriate in conjunction with the Commission, what action is to be taken in response.

The Court of Auditors shall take all necessary steps to ensure that the replies to its observations from each institution or body concerned are published together with the special report.

2. The opinions referred to in the second subparagraph of Article 287(4), TFEU which do not relate to proposals or drafts covered by the legislative consultation procedure may be published by the Court of Auditors in the Official Journal of the European Union. The Court of Auditors shall take its decision on publication after consulting the institution which requested the opinion or which is concerned by it. Opinions published shall be accompanied by any remarks by the institutions concerned.

CHAPTER 2 Discharge

Article 164 Timetable of the discharge procedure

1. The European Parliament, upon a recommendation from the Council acting by qualified majority, shall, before 15 May of year n + 2 give a discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget for year n.

2. If the date provided for in paragraph 1 cannot be met, the European Parliament or the Council shall inform the Commission of the reasons for the postponement.

3. If the European Parliament postpones the decision giving a discharge, the Commission shall make every effort to take measures, as soon as possible, to remove or facilitate removal of the obstacles to that decision.

Article 165 The discharge procedure

1. The discharge decision shall cover the accounts of all the Union's revenue and expenditure, the resulting balance and the assets and liabilities of the Union shown in the balance sheet.

2. With a view to granting the discharge, the European Parliament shall, after the Council has done so, examine the accounts, financial statements and the evaluation report referred to in Article 318 TFEU. It shall also examine the annual report made by the Court of Auditors together with the replies of the institutions under audit, and any relevant special reports by the Court of Auditors in respect of the financial year concerned and the Court of Auditors' statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions.

3. The Commission shall submit to the European Parliament, at the latter's request, any information required for the smooth application of the discharge procedure for the financial year concerned, in accordance with Article 319 TFEU.

Article 166 Follow-up measures

1. In accordance with Article 319 TFEU and Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty, the Commission and the other institutions shall take all appropriate steps to act on the observations accompanying the European Parliament's discharge decision and on the comments accompanying the recommendation for discharge adopted by the Council.

2. At the request of the European Parliament or the Council, the institutions shall report on the measures taken in the light of those observations and comments, and, in particular, on the instructions they have given to any of their departments which are responsible for the implementation of the budget. The Member States shall cooperate with the Commission by informing it of the measures they have taken to act on those observations so that the Commission may take them into account when drawing up its own report. The reports from the institutions shall also be transmitted to the Court of Auditors.

Article 167 Specific provisions regarding the EEAS

The EEAS shall be subject to the procedures provided for in Article 319 TFEU and in Articles 164, 165 and 166 of this Regulation. The EEAS shall fully cooperate with the institutions involved in the discharge procedure and provide, as appropriate, any additional necessary information, including through attendance at meetings of the relevant bodies.