Amended proposal for a Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) amending Council Regulation (EEC, Euratom) No 1552/89 implementing Decision 94/728/EC, Euratom on the system of the Communities' own resources
Date: 1998-04-03
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: administrative procedure, budgetary control, financial management, fraud against the EU, own resources

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels,  03.04.1998 
COM(1998) 209  final 

97/0188 (CNS) 

AMENDED PROPOSAL FOR A 

COUNCIL REGULATION (EC, EURATOM) 

AMENDING REGULATION (EEC, EURATOM) No 1552/89  IMPLEMENTING 
DECISION 94/728/EC, EURATOM 
ON THE SYSTEM OF THE COMMUNITIES' OWN RESOURCES 

(presented by the Commission pursuant to Article  189 a (2) 
of the EC -Treaty) 

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM 

(EEC,  Euratom)  No  1552/89 

On  }  July  IW7  Ihc  Commission  presented  a  proposal  l'or  a  Council  Regulation 
amending  Council  Regulation 
implementing 
Decision  94/728/EC,  Euratom  on  the  system  of  the  Communities'  own  resources1 
in  order  to  improve  financial  management  of  own  resources.  Two  measures  were 
proposed 
the  rules  on  the  collection  of  these  resources:  the 
conditions  for  the  establishment  of  own  resources  referred  to  in  Article 2  of 
Regulation  (EEC,  Euratom)  No  1552/89  and  the  procedure  for  writing  off  these 
resources  pursuant  to  Article  17(2)  of  that  Regulation,  which  states 
that 
Member  States  may  be  released  from  their  obligation  to  make  available  the 
amounts  established  if they have not been  recovered. 

to  strengthen 

This  proposal  was  sent  to the  Court  of  Auditors  and  Parliament  under  Article  209 
of  the  Treaty.  The  Court  of  Auditors  issued  its  opinion  on  21  October  1997  and 
Parliament  approved  an  amended  version  of  the  Commission's  proposal  on 
20  February  1998. 

In  its  opinion  No  5/97  the  Court  of  Auditors  proposes  that  the  two  situations 
covered  by  the  proposed  amendment  of  Article  2  should  be  specified  and 
criticises  the  fact  that  the  threshold  for  waiving  entry  of  entitlements  has  been 
raised  to  ECU  2 000.  As  regards  the  writing-off  procedure,  it  considers  it 
premature  for  the  notification  threshold  to  be  raised  to  ECU  50 000.  The  Court 
also  criticises  the  system  of tacit  approval  for  writing-off  operations  and  suggests 
that  any  entitlements  recovered  after  being  written  off  should  still  accrue  to  the 
Community.  The  five  amendments  adopted  by Parliament  take  over the  substance 
of the Court  of Auditors'  opinion. 

This  amended  proposal  takes  account  of  all  the  amendments  proposed  by 
Parliament  which  simplify  the wording  and  improve  the transparency  and  fairness 
those 
of  the  procedure.  The  amended  Article  2(lc) 
situations  in  which  Member  States  are  financially  liable.  The  new  Article  17(2) 
makes  a  valid  distinction  between  amounts  declared  irrecoverable  by  means  of  a 
reasoned  decision  by  an  administrative  authority  and  amounts  deemed 
irrecoverable  on  expiry  of  a period  of  five  years.  The  amended  Article  17(4)  also 
takes  over  the  substance  of  Parliament's  view  that,  for  reasons  of  fairness  and 
transparency,  there  should  be  an  explicit  procedure  for  approving  applications  to 
write off  amounts. 

is  intended  to  specify 

OOM(97)  343  final,  3.7.1997. 

for  reasons  of  sound 

However, 
financial  management  and  administrative 
efficiency,  the  amended  proposal  does  not  include  the  amendment  abolishing  the 
threshold  of  ECU  2 000  for  applying  the  procedure  in  Article  2  under  which  the 
Member  States  are  themselves  responsible  for  establishment.  For  the  same 
reasons,  the  proposal  does  not  include  the  amendment  to  abolish  the  threshold  of 
ECU  50 000  in Article  17(3) for the notification  of cases written  off. 

As  for  the  amendment  calling  for  a specific  summary  report  on  cases  notified  by 
the  Member  States  over  the  past  five  years,  the  proposal  in  no  way  changes  the 
Commission's  current  obligation  to  report  to  the  budgetary  authority.  Because  of 
the  difficulties  involved  in  monitoring  the  administration  and  the  accounts,  the 
amendment  concerning  entry of any amounts  recovered  after  being written  off  has 
not been  included  either. 

Amended  proposal  lor :i Council  Regulation (EC, Euratom) 
amending Regulation (EE(  , Euratom) No 1552/8° 
implementing Decision «M/72N/EC, Euratom 
on the system of the Communities' own resources 

In  the  light  of  the  Court  of  Auditors'  opinion  and  Parliament's  amendments,  the 
Commission is making the following changes to its initial proposal: 

1. 

In Article 2, paragraph  1 c is replaced by the  following: 

"lc.  An ad hoc entry  is made in the account  referred  to in Article 6(2)(a) without 
notification  of  the  debtor  for  the  purposes  of  the  establishment  referred  to  in 
paragraph  1  in cases where: 

(a) the competent  administrative  authorities do not  make an entry  in the accounts 
for  the  customs  debt  as  a  result  of  an  error  by  the  customs  authorities  in  the 
circumstances  referred  to  in  Article  22()(2)(b)  of  Council  Regulation  (EEC) 
No 2913/92  establishing  the Community  Customs  Code,  even  though  the  debtor 
is known and the amount due can be calculated, and the amount  involved  exceeds 
ECU 2 000. 

However, errors resulting from binding tariff information  or information  on origin 
provided  by  the  administrations  of  other  Member  States  which  proves  to  be 
inaccurate or incomplete shall not be considered as errors requiring ad hoc entry. 

(b) the debtor cannot be notified  within the period referred  to in Article 221(3) of 
the  Regulation  referred  to  in  subparagraph  (a)  above  for  reasons  which  can  be 
attributed to the customs authorities." 

2. 

In Article 17: 

(a) 

paragraph 2 is replaced by the  following: 

"2.  Member  Slates  shall  be  released  from  the  obligation  to  place  at  the 
disposal  of 
to  established 
entitlements which prove irrecoverable: 

the  amounts  corresponding 

the  Commission 

(a) either for reasons of force majeure; 
(b) or for reasons which cannot be attributed to them. 

The  amounts  of  established  entitlements  shall  be  declared  irrecoverable  by  a 
substantiated  decision  of  the  competent  administrative  authority  noting  the 
impossibility of recovering them. 

The  amounts  of  established  entitlements  shall  be  deemed  irrecoverable  at  the 
latest,  after  a  period  of  live  years  from  the  date  on  which  the  amount  has  been 
notified  in  accordance  with  Article  2  or,  in  the  event  of  an  administrative  or 
judicial  appeal,  from  notification  of the  final  decision. 

If payments  are  staggered,  the  period  of  five  years  shall  start  from  the  last  actual 
payment  where this does not clear the debt. 

the 
The  amounts  declared  or  deemed  irrecoverable  shall  be  removed  from 
separate  account  referred  to  in  Article  6(2)(b).  They  shall  be  mentioned  in  an 
annex  to  the  quarterly  statement  referred 
to  in  Article  6(3)(b)  and,  where 
applicable,  in  the  quarterly  statement  referred  to  in  Article  6(4).  This  statement 
shall  distinguish  the  amounts  removed  depending  on  whether  they  have  been 
declared  or arc deemed  irrecoverable." 

(b) 

In point  (b): 

"Paragraph  3  shall  be  replaced  by  the  following"  should  read  "the  following 
paragraph  3 is added". 

(c) 

The  following  paragraph  4 is replaced  by the  following: 

"4.  The  Commission  must  adopt  a reasoned  decision  within  six  months  of  receipt 
of the report  provided  for  in paragraph  3 if it  considers  that  the  conditions  set  out 
in  the  first  subparagraph  of  paragraph  2  have  not  been  met.  In  this  case,  the 
Member  State  concerned  is  obliged  to  enter  the  amount  corresponding  to  the 
unrecovered  entitlements  in  the  accounts  referred  to  in  Article  6(2)(a)  and  to 
make  it available  to the Commission  at the  latest  on the  first  working  day  after  the 
19th day of the second  month  following  the month  during which  it was  notified  of 
the  decision. 

If  the  Commission  considers  that  the  conditions  of  the  first  subparagraph  of 
paragraph  2  have  been  met,  it  has  six  months  to  notify  the  Member  State  of  its 
agreement  to waive the amounts  in  question." 

s 

ISSN 0254-1475 

COM(98) 209 final 

DOCUMENTS 

EN 

12  01 

Catalogue  number  :  CB-C0-98-223-EN-C 

ISBN  92-78-33008-6 

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