WRITTEN QUESTION E-1564/99 by Lucio Manisco (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Commission recovery orders.
Date: 1999-09-01
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: claim, eligibility criteria, fund (EU)

C 203 E/8

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

18.7.2000

(2000/C 203 E/008)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1564/99

by Lucio Manisco (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(1 September 1999)

Subject: Commission recovery orders

For years the Commission has been requesting reimbursement from recipients of Community funds who
have not complied with the rules on the use of such funds.

Can the Commission say how many recovery orders per project are pending and how long each recovery
procedure has been going on?

Answer given by Ms Schreyer on behalf of the Commission

(8 November 1999)

In the revenue and expenditure account and balance sheet the Commission provides information about
debt recovery in relation to (cid:145)sundry debts(cid:146), i.e. all debts other than own resources. An extract from the
revenue and expenditure account (pages 38 to 43 of Volume I, Part 1) is being sent to the Honourable
Member and Parliament(cid:146)s Secretariat.

As there are a great many debts outstanding, this information can only be taken as an overview, with a
breakdown by major area of activity.

(cid:145)Sundry debts(cid:146) comprise general debts and debts giving rise to a recovery procedure for failure to comply
with the rules on the use of Community funds. As regards the second of these categories, a distinction
needs to be made between debts arising out of direct Commission expenditure (managed directly by the
Commission), where recovery is carried out by the Commission(cid:146)s own departments, and debts arising out
of other expenditure, where recovery is initiated by the Member States.

With the present reporting system under Sincom2, there is no way of conducting an individual and
ongoing analysis of progress on all the Commission(cid:146)s projects and the debts associated with them.

The Commission is able to trace the history of each debt and identify the debts associated with each
particular project. The amount of research needed to answer the Honourable Member(cid:146)s questions in detail,
however, would be out of proportion to the result which they seek to achieve and would go beyond the
limits of a reply to a written question.

(2000/C 203 E/009)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1584/99

by Glyn Ford (PSE) to the Commission

(1 September 1999)

Subject: Industrial fishing

In view of the recent explosion in industrial fishing in the North Sea (cid:129) for example, Denmark increased its
fishmeal production from 16 000 tonnes in 1986 to 320 000 tonnes in 1994 (cid:129) does not the Commission
feel that, on environmental and ecological grounds, the quotas should be reduced?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(4 October 1999)

The Commission does not consider that there has been an outburst of industrial fisheries from 1986 to
1994. Figures submitted by the International council for the exploration of the sea (ICES) indicate a rather
stable fishery, only subject to natural fluctuations in the availability of target stocks.