WRITTEN QUESTION E-2571/00

by Robert Goebbels (PSE) to the Commission

(1 August 2000)

Subject: Delays in Commission payments

The European Parliament has now given its final agreement to the late payments directive. That directive will require the private and public sectors to make payments within a time-limit of 30 days, after which penalty interest will be payable.

Does the Commission not consider it necessary to adopt without delay the principles which it has successfully proposed for the Member States?

A large number of complaints have been received from private firms, some of which have been awaiting payment for services provided to the European Union in general, and the Commission in particular, for several months.

The multiplication of checks and the bureaucracy involved have exacerbated the delays in the Commission's payments considerably. This applies to all Community programmes (PHARE, TACIS, JOP, ECIP, JEV, etc.), and some of the firms concerned have had to undergo repeated checks but have still not received payment from the Commission services pursuant to the funding agreements signed.

Obsessive checks are being carried out, and many senior officials are clearly refusing to shoulder their responsibility, preferring to cover themselves by repeatedly requesting information, additional justification, external audits and all the other bureaucratic inventions used as an umbrella to protect the administration.

This atrocious situation has become a nightmare for many private firms working with Commission services.

Should the Commission not apply the principles which it is seeking to impose on the private sector to its own services, particularly with regard to administrative simplification, action to combat late payments and the proper treatment of all files?

Answer given by Ms Schreyer on behalf of the Commission

(31 October 2000)

Directive 2000/35/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 June 2000 on combating late payment in commercial transactions(1) provides that interest is to become payable from the day following the date or the end of the period for payment fixed in the contract. If the date or period for payment is not fixed in the contract, interest is to become payable automatically, without the necessity of a reminder, 30 days following the date of receipt by the debtor of the invoice or an equivalent request for payment.

The Directive also stipulates that the creditor is to be entitled to interest for late payment to the extent that he has fulfilled his contractual and legal obligations and has not received the amount due on time, unless the debtor is not responsible for the delay.

The Commission has been applying these rules to its own transactions since the second half of 1997, when it decided to insert in its contracts a clause formally requiring that payment be made with 60 days and providing that the creditor may demand interest on late payment once the 60-day deadline has passed.

The Commission is, however, aware of the problems posed by the length of time which it itself takes to make payment. In July 2000 it drew up a number of guidelines for its departments, in line with the objectives set in the White Paper on Reform(2). The speeding up of payments is seen as one way of fostering a service-oriented culture within the Commission.

Some of these guidelines are concerned with simplifying the checks on contractors' performance. They recommend, for example, that the time allowed for the approval of reports be limited, that the technical annexes to contracts (setting out what contractors are to deliver to the Commission at each stage of a project) be drawn up with precision and be verifiable by both parties, that the financial clauses be simplified and that fewer supporting documents be required for payment requests under contracts based wholly or partly on procedures for the reimbursement of costs, by setting standard amounts for certain categories of expenditure such as travel expenses.

The Commission must nevertheless verify whether the payments it makes are fully justified and must therefore check all the payment requests which it receives.

(1) OJ L 200, 8.8.2000.

(2) COM(2000) 200 final.