Article 37
The duties of authorising officer and accounting officer shall be segregated and mutually incompatible.
Financial Regulation applicable to Europol CHAPTER 2 — Financial actors
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Section 1 — Principe of segregation of duties
Section 2 — Authorising officer
Article 38
1. The authorising officer shall be responsible for implementing revenue and expenditure in accordance with the principles of sound financial management and for ensuring that the requirements of legality and regularity are complied with. 2. To implement expenditure, the authorising officer shall make budget commitments and legal commitments, shall validate expenditure and authorise payments and shall undertake the preliminaries for the implementation of appropriations. 3. Implementation of revenue shall comprise drawing up estimates of amounts receivable, establishing entitlements to be recovered and issuing recovery orders. It shall involve waiving established entitlements where appropriate. 4. The authorising officer shall put in place, in compliance with the minimum standards adopted by the Management Board on the basis of the standards laid down by the Commission for its own department and having due regard to the risks associated with the management environment and the nature of the action financed, the organisational structure and the internal management and control systems and procedures suited to the performance of his/her duties, including where appropriate ex post verifications. The authorising officer shall establish within his/her departments an expertise and advice function designed to help him/her control the risks involved in his/her activities. 5. Before an operation is authorised, the operational and financial aspects shall be verified by members of staff other than the one who initiated the operation. Initiation and the ex ante and ex post verification of an operation shall be separate functions. 6. The authorising officer shall conserve the supporting documents relating to operations carried out for a period of five years from the date of the decision granting discharge in respect of implementation of the budget. Personal data contained in supporting documents shall be deleted where possible when those data are not necessary for budgetary discharge, control and audit purposes. In any event, as concerns the conservation of traffic data, the provisions of Article 37(2) of Regulation (EC) 45/2001 shall be observed.
Article 39
1. Initiation of an operation as referred to in Article 38(5) shall be understood to mean all the operations which are preparatory to the adoption of the acts implementing the budget by the authorising officers responsible referred to in Articles 33 and 34. 2. Ex ante verification of an operation as referred to in Article 38(5) shall be understood to mean all the ex ante checks put in place by the authorising officer responsible in order to verify the operational and financial aspects. 3. Each operation shall be the subject of at least one ex ante verification. The purpose of this verification shall be to ascertain that: (a) the expenditure is in order and conforms to the relevant provisions; (b) the principle of sound financial management referred to in Article 25 has been applied. For the purpose of ex ante verification, a series of similar individual transactions relating to routine expenditure on salaries, pensions, reimbursement of mission expenses and medical expenses may be considered by the authorising officer responsible to constitute a single operation. In the case referred to in the second subparagraph, the authorising officer responsible shall, depending on his risk assessment, carry out an appropriate ex post verification, in accordance with paragraph 4. 4. The purpose of ex post verifications of documents and, where appropriate, on-the-spot verifications shall be to verify that operations financed by the budget have been correctly implemented and in particular that the criteria referred to in paragraph 3 have been complied with. These verifications may be organised on a sample basis using risk analysis. 5. The officials or other staff responsible for the verifications referred to in paragraphs 2 and 4 shall be different from those performing the tasks referred to in paragraph 1 and shall not be their subordinates. 6. All staff responsible for scrutinising the management of financial operations must have the necessary professional skills. They shall respect a specific code of professional standards adopted by Europol and based on standards laid down by the Commission for its own departments.
Article 40
1. The authorising officer shall report to the Management Board on the performance of his/her duties in the form of an annual activity report, together with financial and management information confirming that the information contained in the report presents a true and fair view except as otherwise specified in any reservations related to defined areas of revenue and expenditure. The annual activity report shall indicate the results of his/her operations by reference to the objectives set, the risks associated with these operations, the use made of the resources provided and the efficiency and effectiveness of the internal control system. The Europol internal audit function and the Commission’s internal auditor within the meaning of Article 71 shall take note of the annual activity report and any other pieces of information identified. 2. By no later than 15 June each year, the Management Board shall send the budgetary authority and the Court of Auditors an analysis and an assessment of the authorising officer’s report on the previous financial year. This analysis and assessment shall be included in the annual report of Europol, in accordance with the provisions of the constituent instruments. Where reporting under this Article concerns ‘Europol operational, strategic and classified information’, the authorising officer may provide for such information to be reported on separately to the Management Board, which shall be entitled to take the final decision regarding whether or not such information should be included in any published document.
Article 41
Any member of staff involved in the financial management and control of transactions who considers that a decision he/she is required by his/her superior to apply or to agree to is irregular or contrary to the principles of sound financial management or the professional rules he/she is required to observe shall inform the Director in writing and, if the latter fails to take action within a reasonable period, the panel referred to in Article 47(4) and the Management Board. In the event of any illegal activity, fraud or corruption which may harm the interests of the Community, he/she shall inform the authorities and bodies designated by the applicable legislation.
Article 42
Where powers of budget implementation are delegated or sub-delegated in accordance with Article 34, Article 38(1), (2) and (3) shall apply mutatis mutandis to the authorising officers by delegation or subdelegation.
Section 3 — Accounting officer
Article 43
1. The Management Board shall appoint an accounting officer, covered by the Staff Regulations, who shall be functionally independent in the performance of his/her duties. He/she shall be responsible in Europol for: (a) proper implementation of payments, collection of revenue and recovery of amounts established as being receivable; (b) preparing and presenting the accounts in accordance with Title VII; (c) keeping the accounts in accordance with Title VII; (d) implementing, in accordance with Title VII, the accounting rules and methods and the chart of accounts in accordance with the provisions adopted by the Commission's accounting officer; (e) laying down and validating the accounting systems, and, where appropriate, validating systems laid down by the authorising officer to supply or justify accounting information; the accounting officer shall be empowered to verify the respect of validation criteria; (f) treasury management. 2. The accounting officer shall obtain from the authorising officer, who shall guarantee its reliability, all the information necessary for the production of accounts which give a true image of Europol's assets and of budget implementation. 2a. Before the adoption of the accounts by the Director, the accounting officer shall sign them off, thereby certifying that he/she has a reasonable assurance that the accounts present a true and fair view of the financial situation of Europol. For that purpose the accounting officer shall satisfy himself/herself that the accounts have been prepared in accordance with the accounting rules, methods and accounting systems established, and that all revenue and expenditure is entered in the accounts. The authorising officer shall forward all information that the accounting officer needs in order to fulfil his/her duties. The authorising officer shall remain fully responsible for the proper use of the funds he/she manages as well as the legality and regularity of the expenditure under his/her control. 2b. The accounting officer shall be empowered to check the information received as well as to carry out any further checks he/she deems necessary in order to sign off the accounts. The accounting officer shall make reservations, if necessary, explaining exactly the nature and scope of such reservations. 2c. The accounting officer of Europol shall sign off its annual accounts and send them to the Commission's accounting officer. 3. Subject to paragraph 4 of this Article and Article 44, only the accounting officer shall be empowered to manage cash and cash equivalents. He/she shall be responsible for their safekeeping. 4. The accounting officer may, in the performance of his/her duties, delegate certain tasks to subordinate staff subject to the Staff Regulations, where this is indispensable for the performance of his/her duties. 5. The instrument of delegation shall lay down the tasks entrusted to the delegatees and their rights and obligations.
Section 4 — Imprest administrator
Article 44
Where it proves indispensable for the payment of small sums and for the collection of other revenue referred to in Article 5, imprest accounts may be set up which shall be endowed by the accounting officer and shall be placed under the responsibility of imprest administrators designated by him/her. The maximum amount of each item of expenditure or revenue that can be paid by the imprest administrator to third parties may not exceed a certain amount to be specified by Europol for each item of expenditure or revenue. Payments from imprest accounts may be made by bank credit transfer, including the direct debit system referred to in Article 66 (1a), cheque or other means of payment, in accordance with the instructions laid down by the accounting officer.
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