Subscribe
The multiplication of EU agencies goes against the principle of proportionality established in the Treaty on European Union. Only in the employment and social area, the European Commission has created not less than five so-called decentralised agencies. The total number of agencies is forty-three, which normally should call for big spending cuts in order to make the Brussels bureaucracy minimally efficient.
On 17 September 2024, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) adopted its Annual report on EU agencies for the financial year 2023. The report shows how between the years 2000 and 2010, a scandalous number of twenty-seven were set up, more than half of all. Their total budget is €18.3 billion, 12% of the EU’s general budget.
In the case of the five employment and social agencies, their respective budget is as follows: €29.8 million go to the European Labour Authority (ELA), €25.4 million to the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EUROFOUND), €22.6 million to the European Training Foundation (ETF), €19.6 million to the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), and €17 million to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). Therefore, the aggregate budget for these five agencies is €114.4 million.
In terms of staff, ELA employs 141 people, ETF 127, CEDEFOP 109, EUROFOUND 95 and EU-OSHA 63, that is, a total of 535, or 3% of the staff employed by the forty-three EU agencies. 18% of all EU staff work for agencies, more than one third of those working for the European Commission.
The ECA report stresses that there is a high operational expenditure risk in EU agencies.
ELA is one of the four agencies, out of the forty-three, that has received a qualified opinion on behalf of the ECA. This refers to payments of €1.6 million made in 2023 in connection to two sources: a contract awarded following an open procedure assessed as irregular (€1.3 million) plus two shortcomings in ex ante checks in the area of contract implementation (€0.3 million). Furthermore, ELA received three observations: two relate to procurement and lead to irregular payments; the other one relates to budget management.
The contract was irregular because the winning financial offer was for €12.9 million, while the tender specifications established the maximum contract value at €6 million. As a result, €6.9 million payments under the contract are illegal.
The two shortcomings respectively refer to a training-related contract where ELA overpaid €261.5 thousand for services which the contractor invoiced despite the fact that they were already covered by a monthly flat rate and/or were not included in the financial offer; and an overpayment of €37.6 thousand because a communication services contractor exceeded the contractual limit in his invoice.
Between 2022 and 2023, ELA has increased its budget by 13% and has augmented its staff by 21%, from 117 to 141 employees. In 2022, the daily and monthly allowances received by a national liaison officer amounting to €83.7 thousand were irregular, which contrasts with the supposed aim of the agency to ensure fair working conditions.
EU-OSHA received four observations: two relate to procurement and lead to irregular payments; the other two relate to budget management.
EUROFOUND and ETF received two observations each: in the case of the former, one relates to management and control systems and the other to budget; in the latter, they relate to procurement and lead to irregular payments.
With regards to CEDEFOP, between 2017 and 2022 it paid monthly and daily subsistence allowances to two Greek nationals employed as seconded national experts, while its internal rules do not entitle Greek seconded national experts to these allowances, because the agency is located in Greece. Cedefop did not further pay daily subsistence allowances to Greek seconded national experts in 2023, but it is not clear that it did not continue to pay monthly allowances.
Source of image: EU Employment