Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

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Changed36.39. Notes with concern the observations from the Court’s report on the weaknessweaknesses related to allowances to SNEs, traineeship grants and recruitment procedures, whereasand notes that the Court made 8 observations of which 3 linked to irregular payments; calls on the agencies concerned to improve their ex-ante checks so that payments are made based on documentary evidence and the rules in force;

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40. Notes a slightly improved gender distribution in 2022, compared to 2021 at the level of senior and middle management, with 66,59 % men and 33,41 % women (68 % and 32 %, respectively in 2021) and within the management board members, with 60,33 % men and 39,67 % women (62 % and 38 %, respectively in 2021); notes that the gender balance reported for staff overall deteriorated, with 54,26 % men and 46,74 % women (50,3 % and 49,7 %, respectively in 2021); calls on the agencies to work on improving further the gender balance in senior management; reiterates its calls on the Commission and Member States to observe gender balance when nominating and appointing members of the management or administrative boards; recalls the ambition of the agencies to align with the Commission to reach a gender balance of 50 % at all levels of its management by the end of 2024;

41. Notes that all agencies have put in place measures to improve staff’s well-being at work and work-life balance; notes that the number and impact of such measures varies significantly from one agency to another and that no common framework of reference across agencies appears to exist; calls on the EUAN to coordinate efforts for the development of a common framework of reference in this this regard; notes with satisfaction that a large majority of agencies have put measures for integration of persons with disabilities in place, where as such measures range from physical adaptations such as making buildings wheelchair-accessible and installing ramps at main access points, to adaptations in staff workstations, specific working arrangements for employees with disabilities, and provision of specific equipment based on individual needs; welcomes in addition other measures that include integrating inclusive practices into HR policies, such as encouraging applications from candidates with disabilities, ensuring that recruitment procedures are non-discriminatory in the case of disabilities, providing training for HR staff and Selection Boards on diversity and inclusion issues, and offering guidance on detecting and counteracting unconscious biases; calls on the agencies with larger budgets to reflect their investment in measures for the integration of persons with disabilities and for the improvement of staff’s well-being at work and work-life balance, accordingly;

42. Notes that 17 agencies have already adopted the Charter on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) that had been endorsed by the Working Group (WGDI) dedicated to issues in the area of D&I; invites the remaining agencies to adopt that Charter without delay; welcomes the active evolution of the Working Group (WGDI) dedicated to issues in the area of diversity and inclusion (D&I) created by the EUAN; notes with appreciation in this context the various activities and events organised by the EUAN in 2022, such as: - online talks on “Redefining Leadership – Women at the helm of the EU Agencies”, on “Overcoming alpha leadership culture: how everyone can become a successful leader”, and on the commemoration of the International Day of People with Disabilities, under the name “Finding our Strength in Vulnerability”; - the EUAN D&I Awards that will reward administrative and HR initiatives that foster awareness and implementation of D&I practices currently taking place within the agencies; calls on the EUAN to provide the discharge authority with the results of the survey on D&I amongst the agencies staff; invites the EUAN to keep reporting to the discharge authority on the progress made in D&I related matters;

43. Recalls the importance of developing a long term HR policy on work-life balance, lifelong guidance and the offer of specific training possibilities for career development, gender balance at all staff levels, teleworking, the right to disconnect, the enhancement of a geographical balance to have an appropriate representation from all Member States, and the recruitment and integration of people with disabilities as well as the promotion of their equal treatment and their opportunities;

44. Notes that all agencies have put in place for all their staff a policy and measures to prevent and fight against harassment, with some of the agencies having specific measures (e.g. training courses, awareness or coaching sessions) in place for senior and middle management; further notes that 8 agencies reported to have 23 ongoing or closed harassment cases in 2022; observes that in some agencies (e.g. ECDC, ENISA, EUAA), for staff related procedures (e.g. harassment cases), support from external law firms specialised in Union Civil service law (Union Staff Regulations) is sought, even when the agencies have their own legal services department/unit; notes from the EUAN’s follow-up report to the discharge for 2021 that in the majority of cases, agencies did not face any cases of harassment where they needed to seek support from external law firms or counsels;

45. Notes that the Supreme Court of Lithuania, in its decision of 23 February 2022, upheld the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C-948/19 which considered temporary agency workers to Union agencies as part of the scope of the application of Directive 2008/104/EC; calls on all the agencies to prioritise permanent staff over external consultants, in order to guarantee high quality working conditions and to prevent knowledge and experience from being lost;

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Changed43.46. Recalls that decentralised agencies have the theoretical possibility to recruit contract agents (CA)for up to 65 % of their total staff number,number to be made up of contract agents (CAs), in accordance with the Union’s Staff Regulations, a provision which aims at flexibility; notesnotes, in this contextcontext, from the exchange of views expressed during the public hearing (called ‘Personnel and other resources at EUUnion agencies, Bodies and Joint Undertakings’, hereinafter the ‘Public Hearing’) held in the Parliament on 27/06/2023, as well as from the Study, that the Commission’s uniform procedures for defining the number of CAs leaves no flexibility to hire CAs based on workload assessment in line with the mandate of the agencies and limitlimits their ability to adapt to emerging needs in an agile way; notes also from the Public Hearing that the costs associated with interim staff services, used to address short-term business needs and absences, exceed significantly exceed the costs withassociated thewith CAs which becomesis a challenge in light of the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) of 11 November 2021 (Case C-948/19)C-948/19), given that it obliges the agencies to follow the principle of equal pay for equal tasks, regardless of their contractual situation; reiterates its call on the agencies to rely as much as possible on permanent staff in order to guarantee quality working conditions, and to prevent knowledge and experience from being lost and on the Commission to ensure appropriate humanallocations resourcesof allocations;human resources;

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Changed44.47. NotesNotes, from the StudyStudy, that in terms of workforce composition, the number of CAs has been increasing over the last decade across decentralised agencies, both in absolute terms and as a relative share of the total workforce: from 17 % in 2012 to 21 % in 2021, whereas the number of CA staff in category IV has seen the largest increase over time (with a share of up to 46 % across all function groups in 2019), potentially indicating that agencies may be employing CAs to perform core tasks within the agencies’ mandate; understands that employing CAs as an integral part of the workforce helps agencies address the exhaustion of options for efficiency gains while accommodating the increased scope of responsibilities with fewer posts; pointspoints, howeverhowever, to the fact that discrepancies in contract types for similar tasks have important implications for the overall work experience of CACAs and their motivation and the higher rotation of CAs working within more specialised roles could pose challenges for the retention of organisational knowledge; notes in addition from the Study the differences between the CA’CA and local salaries across Member States, whereas for some agencies (EEA, Eurofound, Europol) the CA salaries of all function groups were lower than the average salaries on the Member States (DK, IE, NL), while the salaries of CACAs employed in other agencies (e.g. ENISA, EIGE) were higher than the local salaries (EL, LT); observes that the recruitment process for CACAs varies from three to nine months or more and the differences between the salaries for the variety of roles can impact the recruitment procedures and their success rates;

Prevention and management of conflicts of interest and transparency

48. Notes that, with the exception of one agency, all agencies have a policy for prevention and management of conflicts of interest in place; welcomes the steps taken by most agencies to strengthen their internal procedures and controls covering potential ‘revolving door’ situations and ensure full compliance with the applicable rules foreseen in the Union’s Staff Regulations; notes from the EUAN’s follow-up report to the discharge for 2021, that agencies’ members of the management boards come, in most cases, from public institutions at national level, which places the potential conflict of interest to a relatively low level; notes from the same report that for the most part, management board members are responsible for governance and supervision (only in very few cases they take operational decisions) and when such members are going to work in regulated industries, certain restrictive measures addressed to them are taken, taking into account that there is no legal obligation for those members to e.g. apply for authorisation to take up a job; calls on the EUAN to provide the Parliament with an exhaustive list of such restrictive measures that are taken in practice by the agencies; observes lastly from the Study, that CAs do not seem to be at higher risk of contributing to the ‘revolving door’ issue;

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Changed46.49. Notes from the EUAN’s follow-up report to the discharge for 2021 that in some cases, agencies consider their degree of exposure to risk of conflictconflicts of interest and lobbyist pressure to be low, due to their missions, tasks they perform and the environment and context in which they operate, which has an impact on their consideration to what extent they need an anticorruption strategy, while other agencies, due to their higher exposure to such risk, have introduced fully fledged anticorruption strategies, in some cases developed with OLAF; reiteratesreiterates, in this contextcontext, the need to regularly update the rules on transparency, incompatibilities, conflicts of interest and ‘revolving door’ situations, and illegal lobbying, as well as anti-fraud strategies; notes from the agencies’ follow-up report to the discharge for 2021, that most agencies do not plan to develop an internal anticorruption strategy, while in the case of some agencies (e.g. EBA, EIOPA), their anti-fraud strategies include an anti-corruption strategy;

50. Welcomes the publication of the record of all the meetings of interest representatives, stakeholders and lobbyists with the agencies where such meetings are applicable; calls on the agencies (e.g. EASA) who haven’t set up a webpage for the publication of such meetings to do so without delay; notes that, due to the nature of their business, some agencies (e.g. BEREC, CEPOL, CdT, EU-OSHA) do not organise meetings with lobbyists;

51. Notes that all agencies request declarations of interest for their management board members and senior management and that they publish them on their website; notes further that most agencies publish on their website the curriculum vitae (CV) or a short description of the background of their management board members, management staff, external experts and in-house experts; highlights that in the case of some agencies (e,g. Cedefop, EFSA, ELA, ENISA), the CVs of some of the management board members and alternates are not published; calls on those agencies to publish all those CVs on their websites without delay;

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Changed49.52. Highlights that most agencies reported not tothat havethey investigateddid ornot concludedhave cases of conflicts of interest in 2022, while 9 agencies have reported such cases; notes that the cases investigated concerned former employment (ACER), failure to declare financial interests regarding e.g. honorarium received or a close family member interest (EMA), recruitment procedures (EMSA), involvement of management board members in staff related procedures (Eurojust) and employment after leaving the service (Europol); commends the agencies’ overall closure rate (19 cases concluded out of 21 reported and investigated) of such cases, with response measures taken with a view to avoid adverse impact on those agencies’ interests in 2022; reiterates the importance of having robust internal rules and frameworks in place aiming to prevent any phenomena of harassment, conflict of interest or revolving doors, thus ensuring utmost ethical standards and increasing public trust in the Union institutions;

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Changed50.53. Notes that all agencies have a whistle-blower policy in place; observes that 52 whistleblowing cases were reported and investigated, of which 47 cases concluded (including 37 external whistleblowing received by EMA) and 2 cases (Frontex) under investigation by OLAF in 2022; calls on all the agencies to ensure they have specific, safe and effective reporting channels in place in line with the relevant requirements of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of 23the OctoberEuropean 2019Parliament and of the Council on whistleblowing;

Procurement

54. Notes with great concern that the Court observed 48 weaknesses in public procurement in 2022 (compared to 34 in 2021 and 18 in 2020) and that the number of agencies concerned is increasing with 24 agencies concerned in 2022 (compared to 22 agencies in 2021 and 14 agencies in 2020); is concerned that such weaknesses remain the largest source of irregular payments, stemming from irregular procurement procedures reported either in 2022 or in previous years; echoes the Court’s recommendation that, when implementing framework contracts, the agencies concerned should only use specific contracts to procure goods or services covered by the associated framework contract; further echoes the Court’s recommendation that the agencies concerned should further improve their public procurement procedures, ensuring full compliance with the applicable rules, including with regard to the conditions for modifying existing contracts;

55. Welcomes the increased use of e-procurement tools by Union agencies; notes that the most common e-PRIOR modules used by agencies are e-Tendering, e-Submission and e-Invoicing; notes moreover that in 2022, 20 agencies adopted and implemented the Public Procurement Management Tool, 7 agencies were testing it and 23 agencies have implemented the qualified electronic signature tools; calls on all the agencies to implement those tools, work further toward the full digitalisation of their procurement processes and keep the discharge authority updated on the progress in this matter;

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Changed53.56. Recalls the importance for all procurement procedures, to ensure fair competition between tenderers and to procure goods and services at the best price, respecting the principles of transparency, proportionality, equal treatment and non-discrimination; invites all agencies to implement all the e-procurement IT tools developed by the Commission; calls on all agencies to further improve their public procurement procedures as well as to lead by example and make use of the social clause in the existing EU Public Procurement Directive to ensure that economic operators involved in public contracts comply with all applicable obligations in the fields of environmental, social and labour law established by Union law, national law or collective agreement, or by applicable international environmental, social or labour law provisions;

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Internal control

57. Notes with concern the Court’s findings in the area of management and control systems (other than procurement and HR issues), where weaknesses were observed in 2022 regarding deficiencies in data quality and completeness, expenditure implemented without the proper delegation of power of an authorising officer, absence of adequate ex-post/ex-ante checks, and weaknesses in the management of allowances, grants and commitments; notes that from the total of 24 findings in these areas, 3 were linked to irregular payments; strongly insists on the requirement of effective management and control systems to avoid such deficiencies; reiterates its call for the strengthening of management and control systems in order to ensure the proper functioning of the agencies;

58. Notes that, at the end of 2022, all agencies reported that they had implemented the revised, COSO-based, internal control framework (ICF) and that they had performed the annual assessment of the ICF; reiterates its call on all agencies to provide as a minimum the results of the assessment at component level, encourages the agencies however to report on a more detailed level, such as per internal control principle;

59. Notes that, in 2022, according to the Court’s report concerning follow-up of previous years’ observations, 64 observations were closed and 57 observations were still being implemented or outstanding; calls on the agencies to diligently implement the observations and further improve their internal control frameworks; notes finally that 8 agencies reported to have 23 cases handled by OLAF in 2022, with 11 of those cases closed that year;

Other

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Changed57.60. Welcomes the agencies’ further steps taken by the agencies in 2022 to strengthen their cybersecurity and protection of the digital records in their possession; commends the agencies (ECDC, ECHA, EIGE, ENISA) having adopted or updated their cybersecurity and information security policies, in light of the Union regulations on cybersecurity and information security in Union institutions and bodies; notes that some agencies (e.g. CEPOL) have not yet adopted such policies due to absence in their establishment plan of allocated posts that would be needed to implement those regulations; calls on the agencies concerned to find temporary solutions (such as sharing the relevant resources with other agencies) as soon as possible and identify a way to a permanent solution; asks the EUAN to facilitate a better exchange between agencies in this context; calls on the agencies concerned to keep the discharge authority on the progress made in this matter;

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Changed58.61. Notes from the exchange of views expressed during the Public Hearing that:that -(1) cyber threats are ever increasing and ENISA’s budget should increase accordingly, even if it is not entrusted with new tasks, but simply undergo an increase in the scope thereof; -(2) with the Commission’s cyber solidarity and cyber resilience acts, ENISA would receive new tasks without additional resources; -(3) it is very important to carry out and formalise together with agencies, through a clear and transparent method, an assessment of the resources needed when the agencies’ mandates are reinforced or their scope increases; calls on the Commission to take into account these aspects and recalls that, when it comes to cybersecurity, investments need to be made by each agency in order to comply with the legal requirements;

62. Welcomes the steps taken by the agencies to disclose and publish the results of their work through various channels, including their websites and social media; invites the agencies to continue their efforts to report relevant performance information to the Union citizens and the general public in clear and accessible language to ensure greater transparency and public accountability by better-utilising media and social media channels; expects the agencies to report to the discharge authority in this regard;

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Added63. Welcomes the Commission communication entitled ‘Long-term competitiveness of the EU: looking beyond 2030’ aiming to rationalise and simplify reporting requirements by 25 % for each of the green, digital and economic thematic areas, and calls on the Union agencies to streamline their internal procedures to reduce unnecessary administrative burdens;

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64. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the agencies subject to this discharge procedure, the Council, the Commission and the Court of Auditors, and to arrange for its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union (L series).