Address https://gelex.eu/eli/EU/act/oj/L/2018/1440@2018-04-18/en

Contents

1. Preamble
2. A.
3. B.
4. C.
5. D.
6. E.

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT,

having regard to its decision on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking for the financial year 2016,

having regard to Rule 94 of and Annex IV to its Rules of Procedure,

having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control (A8-0070/2018),

A.

whereas the Joint Undertaking started to work autonomously on 16 November 2009;

B.

whereas the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking (the Joint Undertaking) established by Regulation (EU) No 558/2014 replaced, with effect from 27 June 2014, the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking under Horizon 2020;

C.

whereas the aim of the Joint Undertaking is to finalise the research and innovation activities under the Seventh Framework Programme and manage research and innovation activities under Horizon 2020; whereas the lifetime of the Joint Undertaking has been extended until 31 December 2024;

D.

whereas the founding members of the Joint Undertaking are the Union, represented by the Commission, the leaders of the Integrated Technology Demonstrators (ITDs), innovative aircraft development platforms (IADPs) and the transversal areas (TAs) together with the associate members of the ITDs;

E.

whereas the maximum contribution from the Union to the Joint Undertaking is EUR 1755000000 to be paid from the budget of Horizon 2020;

Notes that the Joint Undertaking incorporated into its procedures the common template for the declaration of absence of a conflict of interest as specified in the Commission's guidelines; Notes that the Court of Auditors (the Court) stated that the 2016 annual accounts of the Joint Undertaking for the year ending 31 December 2016 present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Joint Undertaking at 31 December 2016, the results of its operations, its cash flows, and the changes in net assets for the year then ended, in accordance with its Financial Regulation and with the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer; Notes that the Court, in its report on the Clean Sky 2, indicated the transactions underlying the annual accounts as legal and regular in all material aspects; Notes that the Joint Undertaking’s final budget for 2016 included commitment appropriations of EUR 310498422 and payment appropriations of EUR 287755748; Notes that the commitment appropriations utilisation rate was 97,5 % (compared to 99,5 % in 2015) and the rate of payment appropriations was 87,9 % (compared to 75,4 % in 2015); notes furthermore that the lower implementation rate for payment appropriations was mainly due to delays in starting Horizon 2020 projects and, in particular, due to the delayed signature of one significant grant agreement; Notes that out of the total amount of EUR 800000000 for the operational and administrative activities to be funded under the Seventh Framework Programme, the Joint Undertaking made commitments of EUR 784531968 (99,31 %) and payments of EUR 754713155 (95,53 %) by the end of 2016; notes furthermore that since the Joint Undertaking was no longer entitled to launch calls for proposals under the Seventh Framework Programme, the remaining commitments were to be used as appropriate for grant agreements with members; notes that the Union’s cash contribution to the administrative costs of the Joint Undertaking amounted to EUR 13417267; Takes note that by the end of 2016, the Governing Board validated in-kind contributions from other members of EUR 554682257 and that a further EUR 33503466 had been reported by the other members, and that other members’ cash contribution to the administrative costs were EUR 14515387; Notes that out of the total amount of EUR 1755000000 for the operational and administrative activities to be funded under Horizon 2020, the Joint Undertaking made commitments of EUR 693637716 and payments of EUR 281870712; notes furthermore that the lower level of payments was partly due to delays in negotiating the Horizon 2020 grant agreements; notes that the Union’s cash contribution to the administrative costs of the Joint Undertaking amounted to EUR 6144907; Notes that out of the EUR 1229000000 of contributions to be made by the industry members to the operational activities of the Joint Undertaking, the governing board had validated in-kind contributions of EUR 39168595 and a further EUR 103988023 had been reported by the end of 2016; notes, moreover, that the industry members’ cash contributions to the administrative costs were EUR 6389515; Notes that in 2016 the Joint Undertaking launched three calls for proposals and one call for core partners, received 381 eligible proposals (out of the total of 386) and selected 114 proposals to be funded; Welcomes the fact that within the Clean Sky programme the Joint Undertaking has achieved significant progress and results with the delivery in 2016 of a total of 13 significant demonstrators (ground and flight tested) and closing, up to end of December 2016, 409 out of 482 Seventh Framework Programme projects arising from the grant agreements with partners; Appreciates that, in terms of widening participation, in 2016 around 60 more core partners joined the Joint Undertaking membership in 2016, leading to a total membership of around 150 members from 20 countries; Notes that the Joint Undertaking set up ex-ante control procedures based on financial and operational desk reviews, and ex-post audits at beneficiaries of grants; Notes that the residual error rate for the ex-post audits reported by the Joint Undertaking were 1,51 % for Seventh Framework Programme projects and 0,95 % for Horizon 2020 projects; Welcomes the fact that, the governing board adopted a common anti-fraud strategy action plan in 2016; notes, moreover, that the Joint Undertaking’s staff participated in a survey on fraud prevention and detection organised by the Internal Audit Capability of the Joint Undertaking as complementary measure to the common action plan, with a special focus on fraud in research projects; Notes with satisfaction that the Joint Undertaking takes part in and implements the preventive and corrective measures in accordance with its 2015 anti-fraud strategy and anti-fraud action plan at Union level; Notes that in 2016, the Internal Audit Service (IAS) finalised an audit on the Horizon 2020 grant process; notes that as the audit did not identify any very important issues, the IAS highlighted four areas requiring further improvement of the internal control system and issued important related recommendations; Expresses concerns that, at the end of 2016, the Joint Undertaking had only partly completed the integration of its control systems with the Commission’s common Horizon 2020 grant management and monitoring tools; notes from the Joint Undertaking's reply, however, that it has decided to continue to use its own dedicated grant management application (Grant Management Tool, GMT) developed under the Seventh Framework Programme, as some of the required features specific for the CS2 grant were not available in the common Horizon 2020 grant management tools; notes furthermore that the Joint Undertaking started to work with the respective Commission's services to implement the necessary developments for the integration of the grant agreements for members (GAMs) into the Horizon 2020 grant management and reporting tools by the end of 2017; understands that in order to ensure a smooth transition between the two systems, the current tool developed by the Joint Undertaking will continue to be used until the migration has been fully completed; points out that it is intended that the 2017 reporting cycle will be done in the GMT and the GAMs will be fully managed by the Horizon 2020 tools from 2018 reporting period onwards; Notes that at the end of 2016, the Joint Undertaking had not yet cleared any of the pre-financing payments (EUR 176000000) made to its industrial members for projects under Horizon 2020 grant agreements; notes moreover that regular clearing of its pre-financing payments against statements of reported costs from the members would decrease the exposure of the Joint Undertaking to financial risk; underlines the fact that according to Horizon 2020 rules (Article 21 of the H2020 Model Grant Agreement), pre-financing is cleared only at the final reporting period of the project or before, if the total amount of pre-financing and interim payments exceeds 90 % of the maximum grant amount; Welcome the continued progress in the field of cooperation with Member States and regions on synergies in aeronautics research and innovation with the Structural and Investment Funds and highlights that the Clean Sky Memorandum of Understanding model should be supported in the future Framework Research Programme and structured links to the Joint Undertaking should be established in the regional smart specialization strategies and Operational Programmes; Recognises the need for the Joint Undertaking to communicate with Union citizens, through the Union institutions, concerning the significant research and collaboration that it is undertaking, stresses the importance of highlighting the real improvements achieved as a consequence of this work, which are an important part of its mandate, as well as the fact that it works with other joint undertakings in promoting public awareness of the benefits of their work. Calls on the Commission to ensure the direct involvement of the Joint Undertaking in the process of the Horizon 2020 mid-term review in the sphere of further simplifications and harmonisation of joint undertakings.

Versions

1. 2018-04-18