On discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) for the financial year 2022

The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.Welcomes the fact that the Court of Auditors (the ‘Court’) declared the reliability of the annual accounts of the European Union Agency of Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) for the financial year 2022 to be legal and regular in all material respects; regrets that a total amount of EUR 4.2 million was non-compliant expenditure which exceeded the materiality threshold set for the audit, therefore resulted a qualified opinion on the legality and regularity of payments by the Court;

2.Welcomes that appropriated corrective actions were taken to address most of the Court’s previous years observations; notes that since 2020, the Court raised procurement-related observations concerning weaknesses and irregularities every year; further notes that in 2021 and in 2022, these observations affected payments; regrets that one observation concerning procurement procedure from the previous years is still ongoing;

3.Underlines that CEPOL directly reaches only a small fraction of its target population through its training activities due to relatively small size and its annual budget; encourages the Commission to conduct an evaluation study of the feasibility of merging the CEPOL with other agencies within the same remit;

4.Notes that the basis for the Court's qualified opinion on the legality and regularity of payments underlying the accounts were service requests and all associated payments made under two framework contracts; recalls the CEPOL’s response that despite weakness in the formalisation of the legal commitment, the services were ordered in line with CEPOL’s needs and controls and that no loss has been incurred; further notes the Court’s observation concerning weakness in the implementation of a framework contract for educational editorial services in 2022 and conclusion that all payments under this framework contract, which in 2022 amounted to €152 655 are irregular; regrets that, the Court findings revealed that the amount of work paid for did not correspond to the amount actually done and that there was a lack of essential audit evidence supporting the amounts paid; notes that CEPOL has introduced corrective measures with respect to the irregularities found;

5.Welcomes the fact that in 2022, CEPOL carried out 418 training activities, in which 43838 law enforcement officers participated, and successfully implemented 296 exchanges; further appreciates the Strategy Paper by the Expert Group on Fundamental Rights aiming at including the fundamental aspects in all training activities; notes with satisfaction that an ad hoc training was organised on the protection of investigative journalists in 2022; welcomes the specific training actions on topics of hate crime, spread knowledge on effective victims’ support solutions;

6.Recalls that the law enforcement training at EU level needs to reflect the EU priorities in line with Member States' training needs and to support EU’s response to serious and organised crime and other threats to internal security, as well as the protection of fundamental rights should be a central pillar in CEPOL's training activities; notes the training activities in the area of counter-terrorism, including on financing of terrorism, terrorism and firearms, foreign terrorist fighters and activities targeted against extremism and radicalisation; calls for more trainings on cybercrime, cyber forensics, artificial intelligence, data protection, fundamental rights and anti-racism at EU level; calls on CEPOL to ensure, in all its activities, full transparency and full respect with fundamental rights and international law notably its activities with third countries;

7.Further appreciates that CEPOL delivered a series of webinars responding to the war in Ukraine and a dedicated ad-hoc training needs analysis ; and that CEPOL supported the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s office in the development of an Open Source Intelligence training, as well offered extra seats to Ukrainian participants in the training activities where possible;

8.Notes the strong cooperation with third countries, EU agencies, bodies and networks in particular with Europol, Eurojust, Frontex, EJTN, European Commission, EMCDDA, EUIPO, FRA, EASO, and international organisation such as Interpol;

The rapporteur declares under his exclusive responsibility that he did not receive input from any entity or person to be mentioned in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.

+:in favour

-:against

0:abstention