The Commission uses a dual accounting system that includes:
- Financial statements (including balance sheet, statement of financial performance and comprehensive explanatory notes)
- Budgetary implementation reports – giving a detailed record of budget implementation
The financial statements provide a picture of the EU budget's assets and liabilities because they are maintained using the accrual accounting principle: therefore, transactions are registered when they are incurred, not necessarily when cash is paid out or received.
Annual accounts
Every year the Commission's Accounting Officer must produce the EU consolidated annual accounts, which consist of
- the consolidated financial statements (and its notes)
- the aggregated reports on the implementation of the budget.
The consolidated EU accounts include the accounts of the European institutions and agencies.
The goal of these accounts is to provide a fair presentation of the financial situation for a given year. The annual accounts must also be clear, comprehensible and allow comparisons to be made between financial years.
When are the accounts presented?
The timetable for preparing and publishing the annual accounts is laid down in the Financial Regulation:
- Provisional accounts are prepared and sent to the Court of Auditors for audit by 31 March.
- The final accounts are then approved by the Commission and sent to the Court of Auditors and the discharge authorities - the Parliament and Council by 31 July. It should be noted that the accounts are in practice adopted by 30 June.
The annual accounts of the European Union and of the European Development Fund.
Budgetary transparency report
The Interinstitutional Agreement (IIA) concluded in December 2020 aims among things to improve the cooperation between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission in relation to budgetary matters. Points 16 and 17 of the IIA request the Commission to submit an annual report to accompany the general budget of the Union, providing a backward-looking overview of the financial and budgetary consequences of various Union activities, and the annual implementation of NextGenerationEU as well as references to existing available and non-confidential financial and operational reports and documents.
For more information about EU’s debt management please visit The EU as a borrower – investor relations
- Annual report
Budgetary Transparency Report for year 2022 in accordance with points 16 and 17 of the Interinstitutional agreement.
- Report
Budgetary Transparency Report for year 2021, in accordance with points 16 and 17 of the Interinstitutional agreement.
- Report
Budgetary Transparency Report for year 2020, in accordance with points 16 and 17 of the Interinstitutional agreement.
Annual activity reports and Integrated Financial and Accountability Reporting
By the end of March every year (end of April for the Directorates-General implementing funds under shared management with Member States), each Commission Directorate-General must produce an activity report for the previous financial year on their performance during the past year in achieving targets set in their strategic/management plans, which includes:
- results obtained and the corresponding amounts spent, compared with the intentions announced at the beginning of the year in the DG's annual management plan
- a report to the Commission on the performance of the Director-General as authorising officer by delegation. This report includes a declaration by the authorising officer providing assurance on the appropriate use of the resources, which may contain reservations.
- the DG's annual accounts and financial reports.
The annual activity reports are examined by the responsible Commissioners in their assessment of the implementation of the EU budget. They also look at the internal auditor's annual report and the documents on the operation of the internal control systems. The information contained in the annual activity reports is consolidated at Commission level in the Annual Management and Performance Report.
This report forms part of the Integrated Financial and Accountability Reporting together with the consolidated annual accounts and the report on the follow-up to the discharge. It is sent to the Parliament and Council, and is one of the main documents used by the European Court of Auditors to prepare its annual statement of assurance, which evaluates the EU's management of its resources.
Financial reports
The annual EU Budget Financial Report reviewed the way the budget has been spent and the results on the ground. It contained four sections:
- overview of EU finances in a given year;
- EU revenue;
- Expenditure from the EU budget
- Annexes (Expenditure and revenue by heading, type of resource and Member State; Operating budgetary balances; Recoveries and financial corrections and Borrowing and lending activities).
The last edition of the Financial Report was published for the year 2018. The report has been replaced by the Integrated Financial and Accountability Reporting, a summarised version of the previous financial report (with mainly key elements and key data).
The Spending and revenue interactive chart on the Europa website, which also contains the downloadable tables, provides detailed 2000-2020 data per Member State.
- Report
The overview of the EU's revenue and expenditure for each financial year until 2018.