pe 622.812/bur/ann - politico.eu · moment of the 2016 audit. however, the group's name was...
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Appendix 3 : Insufficient supporting documentation For some expenses dating from 2015, the year in which our group was founded, we were indeed unable to recover the participants lists and some original invoices. As the auditing of these documents was done during the 2016 audit (held in February 2017), this time lapse created some difficulties. The website of one of our MEP's didn't indeed had the group's logo clearly visible on the moment of the 2016 audit. However, the group's name was there and the website only contained political information relating to the MEP's work in the European Parliament. In December 2015 an ENF event was held in London. Although invitations and programme weren't kept in our archives we showed the video record of the event in which all speeches were audible, the audience visible and the group's logo always visible in the conference room. So there was sufficient proof that the conference was indeed held, attended and had a European
For your consideration and for that of the parliament's budget committee, the ENF group hereby replies EY's letter following the same threefold structure.
Following the letter 'ENF Group - Audit opinion' from EY concerning our 2016 audit report, I would like to underline the importance of the decisions that have to be taken. Several of them might as well impact the other political groups in the parliament. . I also take the occasion to stress the fact that the term 'qualified opinion' does not imply in any sense public funds have been darkened or any form of fraud has been committed, which seems very important to me, since we are working in a political environment.
Dear Mr Welle,
Subject: ENF 2016 Audit report
Brussels, 31 July 2017
Klaus WELLE Secretary-General of the European Parliament PHS 1 lBOll Wiertzstraat 60 B-104 7 Brussel
Gerolf ANNEMANS Treasurer of the ENF Group WIB 07M55 Wiertzstraat 60 B-104 7 Brussel
~·ENF ~ .:15 ;:·-' ,_-;,
Europe of Nations
A 007806 16.08.2017Personal
Gerolf Annemans Treasurer ENF group
~-- . ---------
Sincerely yours,
We remain at your disposal for any further clarifications or explanations.
Appendix 5 : Sound financial management The parliament's rules on budget 400 do not state what the nature and. maximum price of gadgets and networking meals can be. No suggestions in that matter were made in the management letter for the 2015 audit, which we received by the end of June 2016. Nevertheless, constantly improving our financial management, we stopped considering consumables as gadgets by the end of 2016. Further specifications on the nature and prices of expenditure were approved by our group's bureau on the 4th of April 2017, even before having received the external auditor's feedback of the 2016 audit. We are astonished that internal criteria that serve. filling a gap in the parliamentary rules and were adapted only in 2017, have served as the ground for judging our sound financial management over 2016.
Appendix 4 : Procurement rules As a principle, in the European parliament over 2016, the procurement limit of 15.000EUR applied to the initiators of the expenses. On each of the individual invoices of the two mentioned 'community management' providers not only the national delegation, but essentially the name of the initiating MEP is mentioned as an addressee. Each individual MEP using the services of those providers signed and sent his own payment requests. Not all MEP's of the national delegation used those providers and several other providers where used by other MEPs in the delegation for the same kind of service. Therefore we saw no reason for interpreting those expenses as expenses on delegation level and are surprised it has been interpreted otherwise. We therefore are convinced that in this case, the 15.000EUR limit must be applied on MEP level. Any other interpretation imposed by the parliament, would mean a major breakthrough in an until now highly discussed issue amongst political groups. In attendance of any such definite interpretation, it is to be mentioned that the ENF group decided that since 2017 procurement limits apply on the group, rather than on the initiator level, which isn't requested by the parliament's rules yet.
political theme. The ENF group deplores that the '~"creenshots we made because a complete video isn't transferrable onto paper files, are now held against us.
From: ANNEMANS GerolfSent: 31 July 2017 16:53To: WELLE KlausSubject: ENF 2016 audit reportAttachments: Welle - ENF audit rapport.pdf
Dear Mr. Welle,
Please find a copy of my today's letter to you on the ENF 2016 audit report. The original will reach youby internal mail soonest.
Yours sincerely,
Gerolf AnnemansEuropees parlementslid+32 (0)2 283 77 00| www.gerolfannemans.vlaanderenvolg me ook op twitter
