What changed between the draft committee report and the plenary report

2. MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

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with observations forming an integral part of the decision on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2022, Section IV – Court of Justice of the European Union

(2023/2132(DEC))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its decision on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2022, Section IV – Court of Justice of the European Union,

– having regard to Rule 100 of and Annex V to its Rules of Procedure,

Changed:– having regard to the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and HomeLegal Affairs,

Changed:– having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control (A90000/2024),(A9-0075/2024),

A. whereas in the context of the discharge procedure, the discharge authority wishes to stress the particular importance of further strengthening the democratic legitimacy of the Union institutions by improving transparency and accountability, and implementing the concept of performance-based budgeting and good governance of human resources;

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Changed:B. whereas the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)(the CJEU) is the judicial institution of the Union, having the task of ensuring compliance with Union law by overseeing the uniform interpretation and application of the Treaties and ensuring the lawfulness of measures adopted by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies;

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C. whereas the CJEU helps preserving the values of the Union and, through its case-law, works towards the building of Europe;

D. whereas the CJEU comprises two courts: the Court of Justice and the General Court;

1. Notes that the budget of the CJEU falls under MFF heading 7, ‘European public administration’, which amounted to EUR 11,6 billion in 2022 (representing 5,9 % of the total Union budget); notes that, in 2022, the CJEU’s budget of approximately EUR 0,5 billion represented 3,9 % of the total administrative expenditure;

2. Notes that the Court of Auditors in its Annual Report for the financial year 2022 examined a sample of 60 transactions under Administration, the same number as were examined in 2021; further notes that the Court of Auditors writes that administrative expenditure comprises expenditure on human resources, including expenditure on pensions, which in 2022 accounted for about 70 % of the total administrative expenditure, and expenditure on buildings, equipment, energy, communications and information technology and that its work over many years indicates that, overall, this spending is low risk;

3. Notes that, as part of its audit for 2022, the Court of Auditors examined the supervisory and control systems of the CJEU, in particular the implementation of internal control standards, risk management and the functioning of key controls defined in the Financial Regulation, including ex ante and ex post controls on payments;

4. Notes that 14 (23 %) of the 60 transactions contained errors but that the Court of Auditors, based on the five errors which were quantified, estimates the level of error to be below the materiality threshold;

5. Notes with satisfaction that the Court of Auditors, in its Annual Report for the financial year 2022, states that it did not identify any specific issues concerning the CJEU;

Budgetary and financial management

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Changed:6. Notes that the overall budget allocated for the CJEU for 2022 amounted to EUR 467 900 000, an increase from EUR 444 049 000 in 2021 and in 2020 ,2020, equivalent to an increase of 5,4 % from 2021 to 2022, and that 79 % of the budget in 2022 was used for its members and staff, 14 % for buildings, 6 % for IT and 1 % for other expenditure;

Changed:7. Notes that, in the course of the 2022, the CJEU made 19 budget transfers pursuant to Article 29 of the Financial Regulation, representing a total of EUR 12,7 million or 2,7 % of the appropriations for that financial year; notes further that the budgetary implementation rate for 2022 was 98,43 %,% which is in line with previous years;

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8. Notes with satisfaction that the authorising officer by delegation declared that the resources allocated had been used for the purpose intended and in accordance with the principle of sound financial management and that the control procedures put in place provided the necessary guarantees as to the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions;

9. Welcomes that the CJEU is working on a wide range of IT systems, both internally and via service level agreements, across different areas that will make it more resource efficient;

10. Notes that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in various ways created budgetary pressures for the CJEU, including through rising inflation and salary adjustments, strongly increasing energy costs and costs for a number of goods and services;

11. Notes that the general mission budget of the CJEU declined from EUR 405 000 in 2021 to EUR 390 000 in 2022, equivalent to a reduction of 3,7 %, which was primarily due to changes in working methods with a larger number of remote meetings; notes, furthermore, that the CJEU does not have a specific budget line for missions and travel of its President; notes, finally, that the budget line for the missions of all CJEU members declined from EUR 280 000 in 2021 to EUR 270 000 in 2022, equivalent to a reduction of 3,6 %, which was also primarily due to the increased use of videoconferencing tools;

Internal management, performance and internal control

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Changed:12. Notes that, during 2022, the exceptional measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic were phased out and the CJEU started to function normally; noteswelcomes in that regard that the number of visitors increased to 11 653 persons in 2022 which, however, is still not at the pre-pandemic level when there was 17 136 visitors in(in 2019,2019), but that that might also partly be due to new possibilities to visit the CJEU virtually;

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Changed:13. Notes with satisfaction that 2022 marked the 70-year70 year anniversary of the CJEU,CJEU which constitutedconstitutes a very important anniversary for the entire Union; applauds that the CJEU used the opportunity to launch initiatives under the theme ‘Bringing justice closer to the citizen’, including the new initiative of offering a streaming service for hearings on the Curia website;

14. Notes that, in 2022, for the Court of Justice, 68 % of new cases were references for preliminary rulings, 24 % were appeals against decisions of the General Court, and 4 % were actions against Member States for failure to fulfil obligations; notes further that, in 2022, for the General Court, 46 % of new cases concerned actions for annulment of acts of Union institutions, 30 % concerned actions relating to intellectual property, and 7 % concerned disputes between institutions of the Union and their staff;

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Added:15 Notes that the number of cases brought before the two courts in 2022 is comparable to that of the previous year (1 710 cases in 2022 as compared to 1 720 in 2021) and underlines that, together, the Court of Justice and the General Court were able to complete 1 666 cases in 2022, compared to 1 723 in 2021, which corresponds to the average in recent years (1 692 cases per year between 2018 and 2021); notes, however, that the total number of pending cases is increasing, with 2 585 cases pending in 2022 compared to 2 541 in 2021;

16. Notes that the average length of proceedings for cases brought before the Court of Justice remained similar to the previous year, amounting to 16,4 months in 2022 compared to 16,6 months in 2021; welcomes that the average length of proceedings for cases brought before the General Court decreased compared to the previous year, amounting to 16,2 months in 2022 compared to 17,3 months in 2021;

17. Welcomes that the CJEU has provided a summary of the number and type of internal audits carried out in the CJEU and a synthesis of the recommendations and the action taken on those recommendations in line with Article 118(8) of the Financial Regulation; notes that the internal auditor has an annual work programme with a multiannual component;

18. Notes that the most important internal audits in 2022 concerned bank account management, treasury and payment execution, insurance contracts and risk coverage, dissemination of sustainability information and translation management flow;

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Changed:18.19. Notes that, in the replies to the questionnaire from Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control that formed part of the present discharge procedure, the CJEU mentions that the internal audits gave rise to many recommendations which have been welcomed by the relevant services andservices; asks that Parliament be informed if recommendations from the internal auditor are not followed up by the relevant services;

Human resources, equality and staff well-being

20. Notes that the Court of Justice is composed of 27 Judges and 11 Advocates General and that no new Judge took office in 2022; notes further that the General Court is composed of 54 Judges and that eight new Judges took office during 2022;

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Changed:20.21. Notes with concern that the Court of Justice and the General Court continue to have a very unbalanced gender composition and that of the eight new Judges taking office in the General Court in 2022, five were men and three were women; reiterates its appreciation of the letter from the President of the General Court to the President of the Conference of the Representatives of the Member States in 2021, calling for Member States to take the need for gender balance into account when nominating candidates for the replacement of Judges; regrets that the letter has remained unanswered;

22. Appreciates that the CJEU, as part of its answers to the questionnaire from Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, provided very detailed information on the distribution of staff at the end of 2022;

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Changed:22.23. Notes that, at the end of 2022, the CJEU employed 2253 members of staff, a slight increase from 2 247 members of staff at the end of 2021 and 2 239 at the end of 2020; notes that the overall gender distribution at the end of 2022 was 893 men, equivalent to 40 %, and 1 360 women, equivalent to 60 %; notes, furthermore, that the overall distribution among the categories of staff was 1 300 officials (58 %), 774 temporary agents (34 %),%) and 179 contract agents (8 %), which represents a small decline in the percentage of members of staff that are officials as compared to 2021, mirrored by a small increase in the percentage that are temporary agents and no change with respect to contract agents;

24. Notes that for senior management the gender distribution was nine men and six women, equivalent to 60 % mem and 40 % women; notes that for middle management the gender distribution was 36 men and 24 women, also equivalent to 60 % men and 40 % women;

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Changed:24.25. Welcomes that all Union nationalities are represented on the staff of the CJEU; notesnotes, however, with regret that nationals from some Member States are overrepresented; notes in this regard that French nationals constitute 505 out of the 2 253 staff members, equivalent to 22 %, and that the overrepresentation is significantlyeven highhigher among ASTs,assistants (ASTs), where they constitute 223 out of 719 members of staff, equivalent to 31 %; notes that Belgian nationals and Italians are overrepresented at the administrator (AD) level with 108 and 97 staff out of 1 274 respectively; notes also that Cyprus is the most underrepresented country with only 2 nationals in official and temporary agent AD positions and lacks any nationals in AST and assistant-secretarial (AST-SC) positions; notes, that the CJEU should strive for more balanced representation of Union nationals across all the positions and aim to guarantee an adequate geographical distribution;

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Removed:25. Welcomes the work done in the High Level Interinstitutional Group on enhancing the attractiveness of Luxembourg for staff; encourages the CJEU to continue working with the other Luxembourg-based institutions on different actions, including the idea of introducing a special housing allowance to offset the high rental felt especially by staff on lower grades and the possibility of offering reasonably priced temporary housing for short stays; asks that Parliament be updated on the progress of all such initiatives;

Added:26. Encourages the CJEU to support a multilingual working environment; remarks that even though according to the Rules of Procedure of the European Court of Justice, Chapter 8, Article 36, the language of a case can be any Union language (Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish or Swedish), the daily administrative work is nonetheless done 90 % in French; encourages the other two working languages of the European Union, namely German and English, to be used more frequently on a daily basis in the daily administrative work of the CJEU to encourage multilingualism and in order to make employment more accessible to nationals of all member states, including those where French is not offered in schools; notes that this would also help contribute to more equal distribution of nationalities among staff of the CJEU, calls on all institutions to guarantee multilingualism;

Removed:26. Notes that the CJEU, on 1 May 2022, introduced a new teleworking scheme providing the possibility of working from home two days per week; notes, furthermore, that the scheme allows staff to work up to 10 days per year from outside the place of employment, and that a survey among managers showed global satisfaction with this possibility, which has proven compatible with the proper functioning of the services;

Added:27. Welcomes the work done in the High Level Interinstitutional Group on enhancing the attractiveness of Luxembourg for staff; encourages the CJEU to continue working with the other Luxembourg-based institutions on different actions, including the idea of introducing a special housing allowance to offset the high rental felt especially by staff on lower grades and to ensure that the CJEU staff benefit from suitable arrangements for their living conditions; asks that Parliament be updated on the progress of all such initiatives;

Added:28. Notes with satisfaction that the CJEU, on 1 May 2022, introduced a new teleworking scheme providing the possibility of working from home two days per week; notes, furthermore, that the scheme allows staff to work up to 10 days per year from outside the place of employment, and that a survey among managers showed global satisfaction with this possibility which has proven compatible with the proper functioning of the services;

29. Notes with concern that the number of days of sick leave in 2022 within the CJEU was 23 702, equivalent to an increase of 38 % from 2021 when the number of days of sick leave was 17 138; notes at the same time that, in 2019, there were 25 629 days of sick leave and that the relatively low number in 2021 might be related to the COVID-19 pandemic;

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Changed:28.30. Notes with concern that 46 members of staff reported exhaustion for work-related reasons while the medical services of the CJEU estimates that in 2022 there were 23 cases where members of staff showed symptoms that could be associated with a diagnosis of burnout; notes that the CJEU has offered training courses for managers in order to raise awareness about the different risks related to burnout and about staff well-being; encouragescalls on the CJEU to maintain focus on this problemproblem, to further consider how burnout can be prevented and to take all the necessary measures to ensure the wellbeing of its staff in order to bring the number of cases associated with burnout down; suggests the CJEU and other institutions establish a comments box where staff can leave comments ensuring that staff will not be subject to retaliation; urges that the content of such a comments box be taken seriously and analysed in order to help identify and ameliorate sources of burnout;

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Removed:29. Notes with appreciation that the CJEU is offering training courses to foster and encourage diversity within its services; notes, furthermore, that the CJEU has 27 members of staff with a disability, out of whom 14 are considered to have a severe disability; appreciates that, during 2022, there has been significant follow-up to an internal audit from 2021, in order to guarantee the rights of people with disabilities;

Added:31. Encourages the human resource department to be more aware of the consequences and symptoms of long COVID, other viral sicknesses and autoimmune diseases; urges for the health insurance provided by CJEU and all other Union institutions to financially cover the therapies needed to treat those conditions;

Removed:30. Notes that the CJEU welcomed 267 trainees during 2022; notes with appreciation that as of autumn 2022, the CJEU decided to remunerate all trainees except those that receive a grant from other sources;

Added:32. Notes that one administrative enquiry concerning a case that may amount to sexual harassment was launched in 2023, concerning facts that took place in 2022, is currently ongoing;

Added:33. Notes with appreciation that the CJEU is offering training courses to foster and encourage diversity within its services; notes, furthermore, that the CJEU has 27 members of staff with a disability, out of whom 14 are considered to have a severe disability; appreciates that, during 2022, there has been significant follow-up to an internal audit from 2021 in order to guarantee the rights of people with disabilities;

Added:34. Notes that the CJEU welcomed 267 trainees during 2022; notes with appreciation that as of autumn 2022, following Parliament’s recommendation, the CJEU decided to remunerate all trainees except those that receive a grant from other sources; encourages the CJEU to examine whether trainees are proportionally represented from all member states;

Added:35. Regrets that CJEU in 2022 accepted unpaid trainees, whether during the transition period following the adoption of the new decision on traineeships in November 2021 or due to alternative funding sources; highlights the contrast between the CJEU, which lacks a paid policy on traineeships, and other European Institutions that uphold such policies; urges the CJEU to provide transparency on the external financial sources of unpaid trainees and elaborate on the rationale behind maintaining this policy;

Ethical framework and transparency

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Changed:31.36. Continues to appreciate the reforms made in 2021 concerning the members of the Court of Justice and of the General Court concerning their code of conduct and the declarations of interest,interest which together with the new requirements for the curriculum vitae of the members represents an improvement in the transparency of the CJEU; is, nevertheless, of the opinion that the validity and usefulness of the declarations of interest wouldcould be improved through some kind of verification and quality control;

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Changed:32.37. Welcomes that, since 2018, the CJEU has published a list of the external activities carried out by the members of both the Court of Justice and the General Court; notes that the list is difficult to read for the general public and couldrecommends bethat it is made more informative by including information about the nature of the external activity; stresses that the members are expected to devote themselves fully to the performance of their duties at the CJEU and that they can only carry out external activities that are related to the performance of their duties and subject to prior authorisation being granted and only in the event that such activities are compatible with the requirements of the code of conduct and, in particular, with the obligation to be available for judicial activities;

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Changed:33.38. Notes the decision from 2021 concerning members’ travel, missions and use of drivers and cars, which implies that members will have to cover all the running costs for the use of a vehicle not covered by a mission order above 10 000 km; is, however,is of the opinion that 10 000 km is too high and that all running costs, including the rentuse of a vehicle, should be covered by members when the vehicle is usedcar forfleet privateoutside purposes;of notesthe thatstrict aperformance similarof system,the appliesduties toof the usemembers of the carCJEU fleetshould ofnot thetake Courtplace ofunder Auditors;any invitescircumstance; calls on all Union institutions to agree on a single system to be applied horizontally,horizontally which would reduce the confusion and increase transparency and efficiency in the use of public money;

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Changed:34.39. Welcomes the fact that the CJEU is training all newcomers on all ethical aspects as well as on the rights and obligations of officials and agents as set out in the Staff Regulations, also covering whistleblowing, prohibition of harassment, prevention of conflicts of interest and other ethical issues; also welcomes the organisation of six training courses entitled ‘Rules of Good Conduct’ with the participation of 70 staff members and 11 training courses entitled ‘Internal control’ with the participation 80 staff members; encourages the CJEU to make one ‘Rule of Good Conduct’ training course a requirement for all staff, whether old or new, to encourage a safe and productive workspace and ethical handling of cases;

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Changed:35.40. Notes with satisfaction that no new investigations involving the CJEU were opened by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in 2022 but that one investigation, which is dealing with the conduct of staff that may constitute a serious failure to comply with their obligations, is still ongoing, and that four cases handled by the European Ombudsman concerning the CJEU found no maladministration, meaning that no recommendations were issued by the European Ombudsman with regard to the CJEU in 2022; notes that there were no cases of whistleblowing in the CJEU in 2022, and, finally, notes with satisfaction that no new cases of conflicts of interest were detected in 2022;