WRITTEN QUESTION E-0567/00 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission. EU budgetary contribution.
Date: 2000-02-29
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Community budget, budgetary procedure, net contributor

28.12.2000

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 374 E/109

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(28 March 2000)

According to Article 17 of the Staff Regulation and the Commission(cid:146)s decision on public access to
Commission documents, officials are bound by an obligation of discretion in relation to information which
comes to their attention whilst carrying out their duties. However, this obligation of discretion does not
forbid access being given to internal documents on the express condition that access be granted in
accordance with the procedures and under the rules in the Commission Decision (1). Access will be denied
if the document is covered by one of the exceptions expressly provided in the Code of Conduct.

Failure to respect
the obligations set down in the Staff Regulations may give rise to disciplinary
proceedings. Decisions about whether there has been an infringement and, if so, what sanction would be
appropriate are made in those proceedings. The removal from post of an official or other servant is the
most severe sanction foreseen in Article 86 of the Staff Regulations. It is therefore only applied in cases
where it is proportionate to the professional fault in question.

In the last five years no official or other servant has been removed from office for giving access to a
confidential document as described above to an affected party prior to publication.

(1) OJ L 46, 18.2.1994. Commission Decision (94/90/ECSC/EC/Euratom) of 8 February 1994 on public access to

Commission documents.

(2000/C 374 E/126)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0567/00

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(29 February 2000)

Subject: EU budgetary contribution

Will the Commission publish details of the net contribution to the EU budget of each Member State for
each of the last available five years (a) on the basis of UK rebate budgetary balances (after reallocation of
Customs duty revenue) and (b) on a gross basis before reallocation of Customs revenue? Will it say which
basis it prefers, and why?

Answer given by Mrs Schreyer on behalf of the Commission

(11 April 2000)

The Honourable Member will find the answers to his questions in the documents called (cid:145)Allocation of
1998 EU operating expenditure by Member States(cid:146) for the period 1992-1998. Table 6 of the statistical
annex answers question a) and the arithmetic difference between Table 3f and 4f answers question b). This
report is also available on the web at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg19/pdf/agenda2000/statdepenses98.pdf.

The Commission believes that there is no optimal way to measure net contributions. The Commission has
consistently argued in this sense. For a thorough discussion, the Honourable Member is referred to the
Commission report on own resources of October 1998 and in particular to Annex 3 and related
references. This report is also available on the web at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg19/en/agenda2000/ownresources/index.htm.