Parliament signed off the accounts of all the EU's institutions and agencies for the financial year 2006. However, it is also calling for the creation of a joint Parliament-Commission group to monitor the Commission's supervision of the structural funds and certain other matters.

Parliament welcomes the commitment by the Commission to give a monthly report in the Committee in charge of the implementation of the 2006 discharge follow up where every month one Commissioner in charge will present the development in his/her area of responsibility, covering national declarations, annual summaries and the EU's external activities.

Structural Funds:

The proposal to monitor (on a quarterly basis) the Commission’s own action plan on better supervision of the structural funds has been well received because it will provide a practical solution to the thorny issue of the management of these funds.  Also the Parliament welcomes the fact that as a result of the 2006 discharge the Commission has “finally committed itself to apply a policy of suspending payments as soon as possible following the detection of serious weaknesses in the system”.

National management declarations welcomed:

Another important issue is national management declarations, which represent a major innovation in the management of Community funds and are already used in a number of Member States (Netherlands, Denmark, United Kingdom and Sweden). 
 
The European Parliament is critical of what it sees as the Commission's hitherto “tacit acceptance of Member States’ collective irresponsibility” (with the exception of the above four countries) concerning the EU's financial management.  However, it welcomes the “firm political support” now given by the Commission for such declarations, although it says the Commission should encourage them more strongly.

Budget discharge

The discharge procedure represents the political aspect of the external control of budgetary implementation and may be defined as the decision by which the European Parliament, at the Council's recommendation, "liberates" the Commission for its management, thus closing the budget.

This discharge procedure may give rise to three situations:

1. The granting,
2. The postponement or
3. The refusal of discharge.

The procedure begins each year at the EP when the Court of Auditors presents its Annual Report.  Parliament then embarks on its own assessment of the way the budget was used.  MEPs seek to ensure that any problems flagged up by the Court of Auditors or in investigations by the Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) are given political prominence and remedied by improvements in the system.