REPORT on Special Report No 5/2012 (Discharge 2011) - ‘The Common External Relations Information System (CRIS)’

22.11.2012 - (C7‑0116/2012 – 2012/2091(DEC))

Committee on Budgetary Control
Rapporteur: Jean-Pierre Audy
PR_DEC

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

with observations, in the context of the 2011 Commission discharge, concerning Special Report No 5/2012 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘The Common External Relations Information System (CRIS)’

(C7‑0116/2012 – 2012/2091(DEC))

The European Parliament,

–   having regard to the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2011[1],

–   having regard to Special Report No 5/2012 of the Court of Auditors entitled ‘The Common External Relations Information System (CRIS)’,

–   having regard to Article 319 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 106a of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community,

–   having regard to Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union and repealing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002[2], and in particular Articles 164, 165 and 166 thereof,

–   having regard to Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities[3], and in particular Articles 145, 146 and 147 thereof,

–   having regard to Rules 76 and 112 of, and Annex VI to, its Rules of Procedure,

–   having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (A7-0384/2012),

A. whereas the special reports of the Court of Auditors are examined by Parliament during the annual discharge procedure,

B.  whereas the special reports of the Court of Auditors provide information on issues of concern relating to the implementation of expenditure, and are thus a tool for Parliament in the exercise of its role as the discharge authority,

C. whereas a modern information technology infrastructure is indispensible to the Commission for providing information internally to management, as well as externally to the discharge authority,

D. whereas the Common External Relations Information System (CRIS) has become a key component of the Commission’s internal control system for the management of external actions (point 6 of Special Report No 5/2012),

E.  whereas, at its inception in 2000, CRIS was expected to provide instant financial information about projects and programmes in the external actions field and, in particular, give an accurate overview of the breakdown of commitments and payments between countries and sectors in various geographical regions; this information was expected to supplement information obtained through the accounting system;

F.  whereas in addition to enabling all Commission staff involved in external actions management, both at headquarters and in Union delegations, to work on a common database, CRIS also supplies the accrual-based accounting system of the Commission (ABAC) with financial data;

G. whereas CRIS is a critical system, the loss of integrity or availability of which could threaten the position of the Commission with regard to other Union institutions, Member States or other parties (point 46 of Special Report No 5/2012);

H. whereas the total budget requested for the development, maintenance and support of CRIS had reached EUR 13 000 000 by 2011 (point 13 of Special Report No 5/2012),

Overall considerations and endorsement of the Court's recommendations

1.  Welcomes the Court of Auditors’ Special Report No 5/2012 as it provides Parliament, as the supervisory and discharge authority, with information about the execution of the budget;

2.  Is pleased with the Court of Auditors’ overall opinion that ‘CRIS is mostly effective in responding to the Commission’s information needs in the field of external actions’ (point 75 of Special Report No 5/2012); is concerned, however, about some critical shortcomings detected in the report;3.  Calls on the Commission to define the role of CRIS and its objectives, as they have not been updated since the system became operational in 2002, in spite of the numerous changes to its content;4.  Endorses all recommendations of the Court of Auditors; calls on the Commission to implement them as soon as possible in order to remedy persisting weaknesses;

5.  Stresses that any change in the role and modification of CRIS should reflect the new challenges of the Union's external policy introduced by TFEU, resulting in better quality and improved coherence of data;6.  Emphasises the need to adapt the reporting functions of CRIS to the competences of Parliament in the fields of external policy and budgetary control;

7.  Considers Recommendation 1 of Special Report No 5/2012, namely that the intended role of CRIS as an information system should be set out, notably with regard to ABAC, to be of prime importance; 8.  Considers that an improvement in data integrity between CRIS and ABAC is imperative in order to report on the Union's external activities in a coherent, transparent, updated and reliable manner; stresses that a duplication of ABAC functions in CRIS should be avoided;

Efficiency and effectiveness of CRIS

9.  Is worried about the following observations by the Court of Auditors with regard to the efficiency and effectiveness of CRIS:

- CRIS’s role with regard to ABAC was not adequately defined, which has caused duplication of functions (points 34 and 35 of Special Report No 5/2012) and calls into doubt the added value of encoding financial transactions in CRIS in general (point 35),

- information coming from CRIS can be unreliable (points 39 to 41, 49 to 52 and 54 to 56 of Special Report No 5/2012) and sometimes require additional manual adjustments (Commission’s reply to point 52) because of data coding weaknesses (points 38 to 41) or missing and invalid data records (points 49 to - 51, 54 and 55),

- substantive delays in recording information (invoices and audit reports) in CRIS occurred (point 57 of Special Report No 5/2012),

- the user-friendliness of CRIS remains the most urgent shortcoming (point 43 and figure 3 of Special Report No 5/2012);

10. Is concerned that because of those weaknesses, information provided to Parliament as discharge authority may be unreliable (e.g. point 39 of Special Report No 5/2012 concerns expenditure broken down by country); acknowledges the Commission's efforts undertaken so far (in particular, the Commission’s replies to points 35, 52 and 54); calls, nevertheless, on the Commission to remedy those weaknesses as quickly as possible to ensure the sound financial management of CRIS; suggests that particular attention be paid to avoiding duplication of functions as this is inefficient and risks erroneous data entries;

11. Notes, furthermore, that the functionality of CRIS should be updated in order to provide aggregated information on beneficiary countries, policy areas and financial instruments, which is currently difficult or even impossible; underlines the need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the system for the operators through the rationalisation and consolidation of data coding;Other observations

12. Notes the Court of Auditors’ explanations regarding the lack of any cost analysis for CRIS, which is due to an audit being carried out to analyse CRIS’s ability to provide the Commission with the information needed and not to study its administrative expenditure; regrets, however, the lack of information on CRIS’s cost-effectiveness;

13.    Regrets the lack of a clear long-term strategy establishing CRIS’s objectives and functioning at its inception, which has ultimately led to a proliferation of tasks without any coherent vision;

14. Stresses that CRIS should have a standard mechanism for layering the confidentiality of data and users' access rights; believes that such a mechanism should be established in order to ensure adequate confidentiality and data integrity;

15. Is concerned about the insufficient security of the system; notes, furthermore, that the definition of responsibilities in the sphere of security remains undefined and unclear, resulting in serious risk to the safety of data; emphasises that data must be fully compliant with Development Assistance Committee (DAC) criteria;16.  Reminds the Commission of the importance of complying with data protection rules; criticises the fact that notifications to the Data Protection Officer did not explicitly cover CVs attached to records in CRIS (point 74 of Special Report No 5/2012);

17. Calls on the Commission to address all shortcomings and recommendations presented by Parliament and the Court of Auditors without further delay;o

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18. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the Court of Auditors.

  • [1]               OJ L 68, 15.3.2011.
  • [2]               OJ L 298, 26.10.2012, p. 1.
  • [3]               OJ L 248, 16.9.2002, p. 1.

OPINION of the Committee on Foreign AFFAIRS (7.11.2012)

for the Committee on Budgetary Control

on Special Report No 5/2012 (Discharge 2011) - 'The Common External Relations Information System (CRIS)'
(C7-0116/2012 – 2012/2091(DEC))

Rapporteur: Alojz Peterle

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Foreign Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions in its motion for a resolution:

1.  Notes that the Court of Auditors considers that, in general, the Common External Relations Information System (CRIS) is mostly effective when it comes to the information needs of the Commission in the field of external actions;

2.  Is concerned, however, over some critical shortcomings detected in the report;

3.  Calls on the Commission to define the role of CRIS and its objectives, as they have not been updated since the system become operational in 2002, in spite of the numerous changes of its content;

4.  Stresses that any change in the role and modification of CRIS should reflect the new challenges of the Union's external policy introduced by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, resulting in better quality and coherence of data;

5.  Emphasises the need to adapt the reporting functions of CRIS to the competences of the European Parliament in the fields of external policy and budgetary control;

6.  Considers that improvement of the data integrity between CRIS and the Commission's accounting system Accrual Based Accounting (ABAC) is a key challenge in order to report on the Union's external activities in a coherent, transparent, updated and reliable manner; stresses that a duplication of ABAC functions in CRIS should be avoided;

7.  Notes, furthermore, that the functionality of CRIS should be updated in order to provide aggregated information on beneficiary countries, policy areas and financial instruments, which is currently difficult or even impossible; underlines the need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the system for the operators through the rationalisation and consolidation of data coding;

8.  Is concerned about the insufficient security of the system; notes, furthermore, that the definition of responsibilities in the sphere of security remains undefined and unclear, resulting in serious risk to the safety of data; emphasises that data must be fully compliant with Development Assistance Committee (DAC) criteria;

9.  Regrets that CRIS does not include a standard mechanism for layering the confidentiality of data and users’ access rights;

10.      Calls on the Commission to address all shortcomings and recommendations presented by the Court of Justice of the European Union and Parliament without a further delay.RESULT OF FINAL VOTE IN COMMITTEE

Date adopted

6.11.2012

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

50

1

0

Members present for the final vote

Franziska Katharina Brantner, Frieda Brepoels, Elmar Brok, Marietta Giannakou, Ana Gomes, Takis Hadjigeorgiou, Anna Ibrisagic, Liisa Jaakonsaari, Tunne Kelam, Evgeni Kirilov, Maria Eleni Koppa, Andrey Kovatchev, Eduard Kukan, Vytautas Landsbergis, Sabine Lösing, Ulrike Lunacek, Mario Mauro, Francisco José Millán Mon, Alexander Mirsky, María Muñiz De Urquiza, Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck, Norica Nicolai, Justas Vincas Paleckis, Pier Antonio Panzeri, Ioan Mircea Paşcu, Alojz Peterle, Bernd Posselt, Hans-Gert Pöttering, Cristian Dan Preda, Fiorello Provera, José Ignacio Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, Nikolaos Salavrakos, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, György Schöpflin, Marek Siwiec, Laurence J.A.J. Stassen, Charles Tannock, Inese Vaidere, Sir Graham Watson, Karim Zéribi

Substitute(s) present for the final vote

Laima Liucija Andrikienė, Véronique De Keyser, Norbert Neuser, Alf Svensson, László Tőkés, Ivo Vajgl, Alejo Vidal-Quadras

Substitute(s) under Rule 187(2) present for the final vote

Leonidas Donskis, Jolanta Emilia Hibner, Michèle Striffler, Rui Tavares, Róża Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein

RESULT OF FINAL VOTE IN COMMITTEE

Date adopted

15.11.2012

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

17

0

2

Members present for the final vote

Marta Andreasen, Jean-Pierre Audy, Zuzana Brzobohatá, Andrea Češková, Tamás Deutsch, Martin Ehrenhauser, Jens Geier, Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, Ingeborg Gräßle, Iliana Ivanova, Jan Mulder, Aldo Patriciello, Crescenzio Rivellini, Theodoros Skylakakis, Bart Staes, Georgios Stavrakakis

Substitute(s) present for the final vote

Cornelis de Jong, Ivailo Kalfin, Olle Schmidt, Derek Vaughan