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Official Journal EN
of the European Union L series
2024/2262 10.10.2024
RESOLUTION (EU) 2024/2262 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
of 11 April 2024
with observations forming an integral part of the decision on discharge in respect of the
implementation of the budget of the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union for
the financial year 2022
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT,
— having regard to its decision on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Translation Centre
for the Bodies of the European Union for the financial year 2022,
— having regard to Rule 100 of and Annex V to its Rules of Procedure,
— having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control (A9-0082/2024),
A. whereas, according to its statement of revenue and expenditure(1), the final budget of the Translation Centre for the
Bodies of the European Union (the ‘Centre’) for the financial year 2022 was EUR 49 839 955, representing a
decrease of 6,02 % compared to 2021; whereas 95,80 % of the Centre’s budget derives from direct contributions
from institutions, other agencies and bodies;
B. whereas the Court of Auditors (the ‘Court’), in its report on the annual accounts of the Centre for the financial year
2022 (the ‘Court’s report’), states that it has obtained reasonable assurance that the Centre’s annual accounts are
reliable, and that the underlying transactions as regards revenue are legal and regular in all material aspects; whereas
the Court identified irregular payments totalling EUR 1,3 million, of which EUR 0,6 million pertained to the Court’s
determination that the Centre’s justifications for selecting certain procurement procedures without prior notification
were insufficient, and EUR 0,7 million related to a failure by the Centre to monitor the consumption of financial
ceilings at the level of individual procedures and framework contracts for translations, cumulatively accounting for
2,4 % of the payment appropriations available in 2022, thereby exceeding the materiality threshold set for the audit
and, consequently, resulting in a qualified opinion on the legality and regularity of payments underlying the Centre’s
accounts; whereas, except for those irregular payments, the Court concluded that the underlying transactions as
regards payments for the year ended 31 December 2022are legal and regular in all material respects;
Budget and financial management
1. Notes that budget monitoring efforts during the financial year 2022 resulted in a budget implementation rate of
current year commitment appropriations of 89,08 % representing an increase of 5,55 % compared to 2021; notes
that the current year payment appropriations execution rate was 83,50 %, representing an increase of 6,99 %
compared to 2021;
2. Notes that the Centre’s initial budget for 2022 (EUR 49,0 million) was subject to one amending budget adopted by
the Centre’s management board in September 2022 and aimed to include the updated forecasts received from
clients and the result of the review by the Centre of all expenditure items; notes further that the final 2022 budget
outturn includes the result of the actual calculation of the 2022 budget outturn (minus EUR 0,05 million) plus the
2021 budget outturn of EUR 1,1 million, from which EUR 2,3 million was transferred to the ‘Reserve for pricing
stability’ for securing the budget stability of the Centre in the future, resulting in a budget outturn carried forward
in 2023 of a deficit of EUR 1,2 million;
Performance
3. Notes that the overall implementation rate of the Centre’s work programme for 2022 was 89,6 % according to
amending budget 1/2022; regrets that that rate is lower than in 2021 (93,4 %), therefore ending a positive trend of
year-on-year improvements since 2018 when the implementation rate was 82,4 %;
4. Notes that with 348 070pages, the number of pages of documents translated, modified, edited and revised decreased
by 5,2 % compared to 2021 (367 264 pages); notes that in 2022, with regard to EU trade marks, the number of
translated pages (239 964) further decreased by 12,6 % in comparison to 2021 (274 706 pages), therefore
continuing on a significant downward trend; observes that, with a total of 588 033 pages translated in 2022, the
actual volume decreased by 8,4 % from 2021;
(1) OJ C 38, 31.1.2023, p. 38.
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5. Acknowledges the Centre’s achievements in 2022, such as the development of a new Strategy for 2024-2027 aiming
to increase its impact in the wider context of multilingualism in the digital age, the delivery of bespoke services that
included providing specific services to a new client, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the further development
of the interinstitutional terminology database InterActive Terminology for Europe (IATE) and the support and
maintenance of the interinstitutional terminology portal EurTerm; notes further that the Centre upgraded the
computer-assisted translation technology in place, Trados Studio 2021, along with the upgrade of the modules
dedicated to the management of translation memories and batch project creation;
6. Notes that the respondents (a rate of 36 %) to the annual client satisfactory survey conducted in 2022 expressed high
rates of satisfaction with the Centre’s services and mutual relations, while their priorities in order of importance
remain the quality of translation, quality of relations, deadlines, price, language combinations and formatting;
Efficiency and gains
7. Acknowledges that 2022 was a difficult year for the Centre, considering the external environment with the war in
Ukraine, the continuing impact of COVID-19, increasing energy costs and inflation, and, therefore, a consequential
increase in internal costs for the Centre’s premises and staff salaries; notes with appreciation that, despite the
reduction in the translation efforts of some of the Centre's clients and thanks to its investments in technologies and
efficiency gains, the Centre presented a 2023 pricing structure with stable prices, which in real terms represent a
price reduction;
8. Acknowledges the important role of the Centre and its translation services in the rationalisation of the working
methods of the Union agencies, achieving economies of scale and also absorbing any surplus work of the Union
institutions which have their own translation services;
9. Notes that the Centre took a significant step towards sustainability and environmental protection by signing a new
lease contract and reducing its office space by 33 %, while establishing new working spaces, including a cafeteria;
10. Notes that the Centre has progressively optimised its structure and working methods and has implemented cost-
efficiency measures throughout its business model, for example, by introducing Commission tools such as ABAC,
SYSPER, MIPS and ARES; notes from the Centre’s reply, with regard to SYSPER, that the implementation of a new
module for the digitisation of personnel records started in 2022; notes further that the Centre introduced Systal (a
selection and recruitment tool) and further optimised its use in 2022;
11. Welcomes that the Administration Department of the Centre has improved its performance by reviewing and
revising working methods, while introducing new technology to streamline its operations, which has resulted in
increased productivity, reduced costs, and overall improvement of the quality of the work;
12. Notes with satisfaction that the Centre was one of the participating agencies in the initiative called ‘Joint EU Forces
on AI’, launched by the European Food Safety Authority;
13. Notes with appreciation from the Court’s report that the Centre is among those agencies that have corporate plans to
improve the energy efficiency and climate neutrality of their operations; regrets that the Centre is not yet in
possession of an Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) certificate, but welcomes that it is actively studying
the possibility of starting the EMAS registration procedure in the near future; notes that the Centre is committed to
continuously improving its environmental performance and relies on the general principles of EMAS and the ISO
14001 in its daily practices; welcomes the Centre’s measures to reduce gas and electricity consumption at the
Centre’s premises for the period 1 November 2022to 31 March 2023;
Staff policy
14. Notes that, on 31 December 2022, the establishment plan was 93,78 % implemented, with 46 officials and 135
temporary agents appointed out of 51 officials and 142 temporary agents authorised under the Union budget (193
authorised posts, as in 2021); notes that, in addition, 20 contract agents worked for the Centre in 2022;
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15. Notes the Centre’s gender breakdown reported for 2022, with 8 women (42 %) and 11 men (58 %) in senior and
middle management positions, with 38 men (59 %) and 26 women (41 %) at management board level and overall
staff with 76 men (38 %) and 125 women (62 %); observes that there is an underrepresentation of men in the
Centre’s overall staff; recalls the importance to ensure gender balance and asks the Centre to work towards gender
balance at the staff, senior and middle management level and at management board level; asks the Commission and
the Member States to take into account the importance of ensuring gender balance when nominating their members
to the Centre’s management board; notes the high number of management board members, which does not facilitate
decision-making and simplified management;
16. Notes that the Centre has in place a common policy on the prevention of psychological and sexual harassment that
includes a formal and informal procedure, with appointed confidential counsellors able to handle the informal
procedure; notes the Centre’s reply that in 2022 no harassment cases were reported;
17. Notes with concern that the number of overtime hours requested in 2022 and approved by the management
in 2022 rose from 112 to 252, representing an increase of 125 % compared to 2021; observes from the Centre’s
reply a staff turnover of 7 % (retirements excluded) for 2022;
Procurement
18. Expresses its concern with regard to the observation from the Court’s report that in 2021 the Centre presented
several weaknesses in three public procurements by signing the contracts without prior publication of a contract
notice, while the justification on the need to protect exclusive rights or on the extreme urgency was deemed
insufficient by the Court; notes that in 2022 only one of these three contracts was open and led to one payment of
EUR 0,6 million and the Court’s observation is still open; observes that the Court’s qualified opinion regarding the
Centre’s expenditure for 2022 covers that payment;
19. Notes with concern the Court’s qualified opinion according to which payments amounting to EUR 0,1 million were
irregular along with the two contracts of EUR 110 000 and EUR 52 000, with which those payments were
associated and which the Centre chose to negotiate with a single provider without the prior publication of a
contract notice; notes that despite the Centre having justified its choice of procedure on the grounds of extreme
urgency, the Centre’s justification has been found insufficient by the Court; notes furthermore the Centre’s reply
that it chose to procure an extension of the service through a negotiated procedure because no solution to
transition from the old to the new framework contract was found;
20. Highlights furthermore the Court’s qualified opinion on the legality and regularity of payments made in 2022 in
connection with 117 separate framework contracts stemming from a single procedure relating to the translation of
texts; notes from the Court’s report that the global ceiling for that procedure, which was EUR 1 million, was not
stipulated in the associated framework contracts; regrets that this finding was in breach of Article 2(31) of the
Financial Regulation; notes moreover that the Centre did not monitor the consumption of that global ceiling either
at the level of the individual framework contract or for the whole procedure, but only followed the related spending
at the level of the budget line concerned; regrets that this led to an amount of EUR 0,5 million being irregularly paid
in excess of that ceiling; notes from the Centre’s reply the actions taken by the Centre to improve the Centre’s
controls systems in this area, namely the development of a Business Objects report which lists all framework
contracts in force and includes all the necessary details to follow the consumption of the ceiling of each one of
those contracts; welcomes in this context the development of technical features that automatically detect, highlight
and/or send warning emails when various budget consumption rates are reached (75 % and 90 %);
Prevention and management of conflicts of interest and transparency
21. Notes that the CVs of the management board members are not published on the Centre’s website, while the
declarations of interests of a majority of those members are uploaded thereon; notes that the Director’s declaration
of interests and CV are published on the Centre’s website; notes from the Centre's report on the measures taken by
the Centre in light of the discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Centre for the financial
year 2021, that the Centre is still working on the solution that will allow the management board’s members to
upload and maintain the declaration of interests and CVs by themselves; urges the Centre to finalise this technical
step and calls on the Centre to report to the discharge authority on the progress made in this matter until all
documents of all board members are published;
22. Welcomes that declarations of interests are signed by the candidates and staff before being recruited, during
employment and before returning from leave on personal grounds or unpaid leave; welcomes further that the staff
involved in selection committees for the recruitment of personnel or in evaluation committees for calls for tenders
must fill in a declaration of confidentiality and absence of conflicts of interest; notes from the Centre’s reply that
there were no cases of conflicts of interest or whistleblowing were in 2022;
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23. Notes that, given the nature of the Centre’s core tasks, no meeting with lobbyists are taking place and the Centre does
not currently plan to introduce an internal anticorruption strategy;
Internal control
24. Notes from the Court’s report the observation that in three audited procurement procedures for services, the tender
specifications omitted important criteria for assessing tenderers’ technical and professional capacities and not
defined a set of relevant, specific, and measurable minimum levels of the financial capacity, below which tenderers
would not be accepted; notes the Centre’s reply that those procedures used older templates for the tender
documents and the new templates used by the Centre require that the relevant figures are clearly specified and filled
in;
25. Notes that at the beginning of 2022, the Centre had five open audit recommendations stemming from two Internal
Audit Services (IAS) audits; acknowledges in this context that by the end of 2022, the two recommendations relating
to the 2019 IAS audit on the Centre’s system for the management of the translation workflow and one of the three
recommendations from the 2021 IAS audit on planning and budgeting were closed; notes further that for the two
remaining recommendations, none of which marked as ‘very important’ or ‘critical’, actions have been addressed
and the residual risk for these is minimal;
26. Notes that following-up on the Court’s observation for the financial year 2021 regarding weaknesses identified in
the Centre’s documentation in several public procurement procedures, the Centre has in the meantime revised its
procurement procedures and templates; notes that the status of that observation is now closed; notes that, in 2022,
the Centre finalised and adopted a new anti-fraud action plan for 2022 and 2023, and finalised the last pending
actions from the previous plan;
27. Welcomes the quality audits successfully completed in 2022 that provide an additional assurance to the Centre’s
management as to the effectiveness, efficiency and conformity of the audited procedures; notes that there were no
deviations registered for the audited procedures and a number of remarks and suggestions for improvement were
identified and agreed in the audit reports, and were further transposed into action plans for implementation;
Other comments
28. Acknowledges the efforts of the Centre in 2022 to increase its public visibility; notes the Centre’s improved social
media metrics, with a number of subscribers to the social media accounts (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) that
increased by 11 % in 2022; commends the Centre for maintaining its focus on making its enlarged service portfolio
better known to its clients, external language service providers, institutional partners and the public, via leaflets,
video tutorials for the internal and external workflow tools, or videos promoting the post-editing service, as a way
to reach a wider audience; notes that the best practice exchanges with universities and the global translation
community (memoQ podcast, Nordic Techkomm Denmark Conference) continued to be part of the Centre’s
outreach activities in 2022;
29. Refers, for other observations of a cross-cutting nature accompanying its decision on discharge, to its resolution of
11 April 2024(2)on the performance, financial management and control of the agencies.
(2) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2024)0280.
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