Signing off the accounts

The CoCoBu

In the late afternoon to the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee where the discharge motion for the Committee’s handling of the 2007 accounts was to be discussed. The procedure needs a little explaining. The Parliament grants discharge on the basis of a report it receives from the Court of Auditors, so the discharge motion comes at the end of a relatively long process of monetary and managerial auditing. Hence the two year delay. Since I only became SG in October last year, it means I will (hopefully) be granted discharge on the basis of my predecessor’s work, and I will only be granted (hopefully) discharge for my own managerial work from 2011 onwards (for the handling of this year’s budget). The good news is that the discharge motion went through smoothly (and must now be approved by the Parliament’s plenary). But the resolution contains a number of recommendations and we now have to get cracking and start implementing them.