DECISION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT of 18 November 1992 giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1990 financial year as regards Sections I - Parliament, II - Council, III - Commission, IV - Court of Justice and V - Court of Auditors
(93/65/Euratom, ECSC, EEC)THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
- Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, and in particular Article 78g thereof,
- Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular Article 206b thereof,
- Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, and in particular Article 180b thereof,
- Having regard to the budget for the 1990 financial year,
- Having regard to the revenue and expenditure accounts and the balance sheet of the European Communities for the 1990 financial year (SEC (91) 0508 to 0512 and SEC (91) 0512/Annex),
- Having regard to the report of the Court of Auditors for the 1990 financial year and the replies of the institutions (1),
- Having regard to the Council recommendation of 16 March 1992 (C3-0104/92),
- Having regard to its resolution of 8 April 1992 on postponement of the discharge to be granted to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1990 financial year (2),
- Having regard to the letter dated 16 October 1992 from Commissioner Schmidhuber to the President of the European Parliament (C3-0421/92),
- Having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the opinions of the Committee on Energy, Research and Technology, the Committee on External Economic Relations, the Committee on Transport and Tourism, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the Committee on Development and Cooperation, the Committee on Women's Rights, the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and the Working Environment, the Committee on Regional Policy, Regional Planning and Relations with Regional and Local Authorities, and the Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development (A3-0109/92),
1. Notes that the authorized revenue and expenditure for the 1990 financial year amounted to:
/* Tables: see OJ */
3. Notes that the Financial Controller will henceforward, as a rule, withhold approval from commitment proposals not presented in advance, but will grant approval in exceptional cases where he judges, in all independence, that the reasons for a posteriori presentation were unavoidable; insists that the Financial Controller report all such cases to the discharge authority;
4. Notes the solemn undertakings given by the Commission, especially by its President, to propose measures aimed at restoring the Community's financial autonomy and recalls that two courses of action need to be envisaged to this end:
- re-establishing VAT as a genuine own resource;
- replacing those resources which have the character of a national contribution by Community fiscal resources;
5. Considers that the adjustments proposed by the Commission to Article 6 of the Council Decision (EEC) No 88/377 of 24 June 1988 on Budgetary Discipline (3) are, in their essentials, a restatement of the obligations clearly placed on the Commission by that Article, namely timely management of markets rather than mere financial engineering; takes it, therefore, that the Commission now shares Parliament's interpretation of Article 6;
6. Notes that the Commission has finalized proposals aimed at intensifying the fight against fraud on the Community budget, and will deal with this subject again in the 1991 discharge procedure;
7. Records its comments in the resolution which forms an integral part of this decision;
8. Instructs its President to forward this decision and the resolution containing its comments to the Commission, the Council, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors and the European Investment Bank and to have them published in the Official Journal of the European Communities (L series).
Done at Strasbourg, 18 November 1992.