Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Added36. Criticises the significant increase in the travel budget for the President of the European Council over a number of years and is concerned that, according to press reports, the President of the European Council only used commercial planes on 18 out of 112 missions undertaken between the beginning of his term in 2019 and December 2022; stresses that commercial planes should be the standard option also for the President of the European Council whenever that alternative is available and in line with the agenda and location of the meetings concerned and underlines that the leaders of the Union’s institutions should act as good examples to the public, not least in relation to ensuring climate sustainability policies;

AddedInternal management, performance and internal control

Added37. Notes that, during 2022, the exceptional measures related to COVID-19 pandemic were phased out and that meeting activities came back to normal; in that regard, notes that the number of videoconferences decreased in favour of physical meetings from 2021, when 35 % of meetings were videoconferences and 65 % were physical meetings, to 2022, when 15 % of meetings were videoconferences and 85 % were physical meetings;

Added38. Notes that the total number of official meetings in 2022 was 4 415, which represents an increase of 2,9 % from 4 291 in 2021 and which includes a significant increase in physical meetings with more than 150 %;

Added39. Notes that 44 new public procurement procedures were launched by the General Secretariat of the Council in 2022 and that 42 contracts were signed for a total amount of EUR 123 863 392 which represents a significant reduction from 2021 when 62 new public procurement procedures were launched and 102 contracts were signed for a total amount of EUR 416 013 813;

Added40. Welcomes that the General Secretariat of the Council has provided a summary of the number and type of internal audits carried out in the General Secretariat in 2022 and a synthesis of the recommendations and the action taken on those recommendations in line with Article 118(8) of the Financial Regulation; notes that the internal auditor has established a three year work programme for the period 2022-2024, which is being broken down into annual work programmes; further notes that seven internal audits were carried out in 2022; notes with concern that, at the end of 2022, only 72 % of the recommendations from the 2019-2021 work programme were implemented and 27 % are still open;

Added41. Welcomes that the internal audits were carried out within a wide range of areas; further welcomes that all recommendations concerning six of the seven audits were accepted; regrets that the results concerning the audit on the crypto management was not communicated because the audit report was classified; stresses that Parliament has systems in place to handle classified information and that the results of the audit on crypto management could have been communicated using those systems;

AddedHuman resources, equality and staff well-being

Added42. Notes that, given the Council’s lack of cooperation with Parliament, observations in this section primarily rely on aggregated information published on the Council’s website which provides limited detail;

Added43. Notes that the Council, in its budget for 2022, was assigned 3 029 posts which is the same as for 2021 but that the distribution among categories changed with the number of administrator (AD) posts increasing from 1 493 to 1 519, the number of assistant (AST) posts falling from 1 320 to 1 284 and the number of secretary (SC) posts increasing from 180 to 190; asks the Council to provide more details on burnout prevention for its staff, especially as the number of assistants has been decreasing;

Added44. Observes that, according to its financial activity report for 2022, the General Secretariat of the Council had 2 924 occupied posts by 31 December 2022; furthermore notes that the Council website states that the Council Secretariat had 3 108 staff (officials, temporary and contract staff and seconded national experts) on 1 January 2023; calls on the Council to avoid publishing discrepant information in its open sources;

Added45. Notes that out of 3 108 staff, 1 783 (57 %) were women and 1 325 (43 %) men; regrets that in the category ‘senior management’ only 18 out of 51, equivalent to 35 %, were women; regrets furthermore that this represents a fall in the share of women in senior management from 38 % in 2021;

Added46. Notes that 37 out of 83, equivalent to 45 %, in the category ‘middle management’ were women which represents a small increase from 44 % last year; notes, finally, that 814 out of 1 462, equivalent to 56 %, of the ADs were woman which also represents a small increase from 55 % in 2021 and notes that 882 out of 1 411, equivalent to 63 %, of ASTs and SCs were women which is the same as in 2021;

Added47. Regrets the gender imbalance in senior management positions within the General Secretariat of the Council; calls on the Council to take immediate and concrete measures to achieve gender balance at all levels of hierarchy;

Added48. Notes that all 27 Member States are represented on the staff but that there are serious geographical imbalances with 527 Belgian members of staff, equivalent to 17 %, while only 0,2 % are Cypriot and 0,3 % Luxembourgish; underlines the importance of a fair geographical balance of the members of staff at all levels, especially at middle and senior management levels, while at the same time fulfilling the requirements in the staff regulation in relation to competences and merits of candidates;

Added49. Regrets the lack of information on the implementation of the Council’s gender action plan and on the measures taken to ensure equal opportunities for persons with disabilities employed by the Council; calls on the Council to provide information to Parliament on gender balance, geographical distribution and disabilities of its members of staff and on the related internal policies;

Added50. Regrets that since the Council has not been replying to the questionnaire from Parliament, Parliament has no information about the number of trainees in Council during 2022 and whether they were paid during their traineeship or not; recalls Parliament’s request to all institutions that all trainees should receive a salary unless they are already paid by other sources;

AddedEthical framework and transparency

Added51. Reiterates that ethical conduct contributes to sound financial management and increases public trust and that, as stressed by the Court in its Special Report No 13/2019, there is scope for improvement in the ethical frameworks of the Union institutions, something that is crucial as any unethical behaviour by staff and members attracts high levels of public interest and reduces trust in the Union;

Added52. Regrets that Parliament does not have any possibility to ask questions concerning the ethical framework in place in the Council since the Council will not answer questions from Parliament and. therefore, no information is received about the code of conduct applicable to all members of staff of the Council;

Added53. Recalls the recommendation issued by the Court in its Special Report No 13/2019 with regard to improving the Council’s ethical framework; expresses concern about the lack of a common Union ethical framework governing the work of the representatives of Member States in the Council as identified by the Court;

Added54. Notes that the General Secretariat of the Council publishes an annual report with information regarding the occupational activities of former senior officials of the General Secretariat of the Council after leaving the service (Article 16, third and fourth paragraphs, of the Staff Regulations); notes that, according to the report concerning 2022, four senior officials declared their intention to engage in occupational activities during 2022 and that two former senior officials submitted declarations in late 2021, which were also examined in 2022; notes that none of the requests were found to fall within the scope of Article 16;

Added55. Notes with satisfaction that all the competent directors-general of the Council, in their annual activity reports, declared that no cases of fraud or irregularities were brought to their attention during 2022;

AddedDigitalisation, cybersecurity and data protection

Added56. Notes that, initially, the Council budget for IT systems and telecommunications in 2022 was EUR 48 115 000 which represents an increase of 2,1 % compared to 2021; notes, however, that a further EUR 6 805 000 was transferred to the budget during 2022 but that the actual payments were considerably lower at EUR 27 096 067, which represents only about 50 % of the total final appropriations;

Added57. Welcomes that the electronic processing of invoices reached 97 % in 2022 which represents a significant increase from 89 % in 2021;

Added58. Reiterates its call on the Council to explore ways to use open-source technologies as widely as possible and to report on progress in using such systems;

AddedBuildings

Added59. Notes that the total payments with respect to buildings amounted to EUR 45 435 994 in 2022, significantly up from EUR 35 709 119 in 2021, representing an increase of 27,2 %; notes that the major reason for this increase is payments for water, gas, electricity and heating which increased from EUR 2 565 008 in 2021 to EUR 11 233 088 in 2022, equivalent to an increase of 338 %;

Added60. Welcomes that the Council was able to reduce the consumption of energy in 2022 compared to previous years, also because of the policy adopted by all Union institutions to reduce the temperature in buildings to 19 degrees; encourages, nevertheless, the Council Secretariat to identify further initiatives to reduce energy consumption;

Added61. Regrets that since the Council has not been replying to the questionnaire from Parliament, Parliament has no information about initiatives in Council during 2022 concerning improved access to their buildings for people with disabilities and other possible initiatives for people with disabilities;

AddedEnvironment and sustainability

Added62. Notes that it continues to be difficult to obtain updated and comprehensive information about any initiatives from the Council concerning the environment and sustainability and the development in general consumption, including the use of water, gas, electricity and paper; encourages the Council to report systematically on the environmental and sustainability elements of its work as part of its annual reporting; notes with satisfaction a few scattered initiatives mentioned in the annual reporting, such as buying four electrical cars and the encouragement to integrate clauses related to the environment in procurement procedures;

Added63. Continues to call on the Council to establish a system, if it has not already been established, to encourage staff to use public transportation or other low emission transportation like bikes to reduce the carbon footprint of the Council;

Added64. Notes that the annual accounts of the Council mention that, at the end of 2022, the Council was in possession of 773,4 Green Energy Certificates compared with 2 589,2 at the end of 2021, based on the energy produced by solar panels located on the roof of Council buildings; notes that the certificates are valued at EUR 65 each; continues to asks the Council to report back in more detail on the selling of such certificates on the open market and the intended use of the revenue generated;

AddedInterinstitutional cooperation

Added65. Stresses the need for Article 319 TFEU to be revised as part of a change of that Treaty in order to explicitly stipulate that Parliament, besides giving discharge to the Commission, also gives discharge to other Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies in respect of the implementation of their sections of the general budget or of their budgets;

AddedCommunication

Added66. Notes that 2022 was a record year with more than 24,5 million visits on the Council’s website, representing an increase of 16 % compared to 2020, and that the number of followers on Facebook increased by 8 %, whereas the number of followers on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and LinkedIn increased by 19 %, 17 % and 33 %, respectively;

Added67. Encourages the Council to engage with the European Data Protection Supervisor with a view to utilise the two open-source social media platforms, EU Voice and EU Video, that were launched as a public pilot project to promote the use of free and open -source social networks; encourages the Council to use decentralised social network alternatives to very large online platforms, such as Mastodon.