Nedzhmi Ali (ALDE). – Mr President, I would like to congratulate both rapporteurs on the discharge of the EU’s agencies and the European Parliament for the financial year 2017. These are institutions whose functioning has a substantial impact on the everyday lives of European citizens and on their perception of the effectiveness of law-making within the Union.

These 32 agencies had a combined budget of EUR 2.24 billion in payment appropriations. Bearing in mind the magnitude of their activities, for us it is important that ECA issued clear opinions on the legality and regularity of the payments underlying the agencies’ accounts, except for one of them. Despite some weaknesses related to staffing, public procurement procedures and a lack of harmonisation of information technology, we should underline that the agencies demonstrated increased cooperation that helped to enhance their visibility. Furthermore, they were able to demonstrate improvements in efficiency as well as to generate added value.

Concerning the European Parliament, we also have positive attitudes. The use of the financial resources in the fulfilment of objectives for 2017 shows encouraging results: 99 % of the budget was committed, and only 1 % had to be cancelled. This proves good management of financial resources. At the same time, the objectives pursued, and outcomes achieved, during the year stem mainly from the priorities set by Parliament’s competent bodies preparing the budget.

Some of the improvements introduced within Parliament during the year 2017 helped not only to increase the effectiveness of its functioning generally, but also to support …

(The President cut off the speaker)