Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for failure to fulfil obligations – Subject-matter of the dispute – Determination during the procedure prior to the action

(Art. 226 EC)

2. Own resources of the European Communities – Establishment and making available by the Member States

(Council Regulation No 1150/2000, Arts 6(3)(a) and ( b), and 10)

3. Own resources of the European Communities – Establishment and making available by the Member States

(Council Regulation No 1150/2000, Arts 10 and 11)

Summary

1. In an action for failure to fulfil obligations, although the claims as stated in the application cannot in principle be extended beyond the infringements alleged in the operative part of the reasoned opinion and in the letter of formal notice, it is none the less true that the Commission has standing to seek a declaration that a Member State has failed to fulfil obligations which were created in the initial version of a Community measure, subsequently amended or repealed, and which were maintained in force under the new provisions. Conversely, the subject-matter of the dispute cannot be extended to obligations arising under new provisions which do not correspond to those arising under the initial version of the measure concerned, as otherwise it would constitute a breach of the essential procedural requirements of infringement proceedings.

(see para. 21)

2. Once the conditions laid down by Article 6(3)(b) of Regulation No 1150/2000 implementing Decision 94/728 on the system of the Communities’ own resources for an initial entry of the amount of the customs debt in the separate accounts for such matters as unrecovered duties (the B accounts) are present, the own resources must be made available to the Commission within the period laid down in Article 10(1) that regulation, which runs from the time of ‘recovery’ of those amounts, and not from the time at which the entitlements are established, as is the case for amounts that must be entered in the A accounts. Therefore, to require the customs authorities to transfer to the A accounts the amount of the payments in instalments made in order to discharge a customs debt which had been correctly entered in the B accounts would have the paradoxical consequence of making the period for the availability of entitlements entered in the A accounts run against those amounts, with the result that all the amounts received after the expiry of that period, which runs from the point at which the customs debt is established, would necessarily be belatedly credited to the Commission’s account, even though it was possible for those same amounts to be correctly entered in the B accounts prior to their being received by the customs authorities.

(see paras 43-44)

3. Having regard to the need to secure the rapid and effective availability of the Community’s own resources, and, second, taking proper account of the protection of the financial interests of the Member States, Article 10 of Regulation No 1150/2000 implementing Decision 94/728 on the system of the Communities’ own resources must be interpreted as meaning that the amounts received in cases of payment of a customs debt in instalments under a transaction agreement must be regarded as having been recovered within the meaning of that provision, with the result that they should be credited to the Commission’s account at the latest on the first working day after the 19th day of the second month following the month in which they were received. Under Article 11 of Regulation No 1150/2000, any delay in making the entry in the account referred to in Article 9(1) of that regulation gives rise to the payment of interest by the Member State concerned at the interest rate applicable to the entire period of delay. That interest is payable in respect of any delay, regardless of the reason for the delay in making the entry in the Commission’s account.

(see paras 51, 53)