WRITTEN QUESTION E-0423/02 by Jonas Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Interest claim for late ratification.
Date: 2002-02-21
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU Member State, Member States' contribution, Sweden, financing of the EU budget, interest, ratification of an agreement

C 277 E/44

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

14.11.2002

Reply given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(16 April 2002)

The Commission shares the feelings expressed by the Honourable Member. Nevertheless, we wish to direct
his attention to two points.

Firstly, the circumstances of the case, insofar as they are described in the question, make it difficult to
establish the precise aim of the checks conducted by the customs authorities.

They may have been looking for fraud relating to customs duties. In such cases, customs officers are
empowered to conduct checks as laid down in Articles 4(14), 13 and 78 of the Community Customs Code.
Insofar as there are no provisions for exchange of information between Member States for checks of this
type carried out onboard a vehicle, it is neither implausible nor illegal that such a vehicle, its passengers
and their baggage, who have already been checked in one Member State, should be required to undergo
another inspection by the authorities of a second Member State.

The customs authorities may also have been in search of prohibited goods (drugs, weapons, etc). The
regulations governing the control of such goods (such as those covered by Articles 28 and 30 of the EC
Treaty, for example), have still not been harmonised at Community level.

Finally, the customs authorities may have wished to check the persons themselves (their identity papers,
residence papers, etc.).

As a result, the fact that two separate checks were carried out within the Community, one after the other,
on a single vehicle, does not per se contravene Community regulations. Moreover, it is quite possible that
the first check may have concerned import duty offences, while the second was looking for goods which
are prohibited in the Member State in question.

Secondly, the Commission also wishes to draw the Honourable Member’s attention to the division of
responsibilities determined by Title VI of the Treaty on European Union on police and judicial cooperation
in criminal matters, on the one hand, and by the EC Treaty, on the other.

The EC Treaty created a customs union between the Member States, but did not specify in every case the
judicial instruments which national customs authorities could use to apply Community regulations. As a
result, the rules on criminal procedure for checks on goods and persons fall under the Treaty on European
Union. This means that common rules governing national criminal procedures can only be drawn up
through the intergovernmental procedures laid down in that Treaty.
It is possible that a European
framework could be defined for certain administrative prerogatives mentioned by the Honourable Member.

Finally, the Commission is working to help prevent the recurrence of events such as those described by the
Honourable Member through the transnational risk analysis programmes we have launched. Active
cooperation between national administrations should thus ensure that customs checks are focused on those
transport operations which constitute a real risk.

(2002/C 277 E/047)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0423/02

by Jonas Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(21 February 2002)

Subject: Interest claim for late ratification

Until every Member State has approved the new ‘membership fee’ system, Sweden will be obliged to pay
some 100 million Swedish kroner too much every month. The new system should have come into
operation at the beginning of the year, but two countries have still to ratify the decision which gives
Sweden a ‘rebate’ and was taken as long ago as the Berlin summit.

14.11.2002

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 277 E/45

Sweden has established within the Council of Ministers of Economic and Financial Affairs that the excess
amounts Sweden is paying in will gradually be returned. The issue will therefore be the interest on those
sums. Sweden’s Minister of Financial Affairs, Mr Bosse Ringholm, has said that Sweden will be claiming
compensation for loss of interest.

Does the Commission consider that Sweden should receive compensation for loss of interest?

Answer given by Mrs Schreyer on behalf of the Commission

(3 April 2002)

The Honourable Member is informed that all Member States have now notified the Council of their
ratification of
the European
the new Council Decision of 29 September 2000 on the system of
Communities’ own resources (2000/597/EC, Euratom (1)).

According to the third paragraph of Article 10(1) of the Council Decision it shall enter into force on the
first day of the month following receipt of the last notifications mentioned above. Since the last Member
State submitted its notification on 5 February 2002 this year the new Decision consequently entered into
force as from 1 March 2002 (with retroactive effect mainly as from 1 January 2002, but for some
provisions as from 1 January 2001).

The Decision does not, however, contain any provisions concerning compensation for loss of interest in
the case of entry into force after a certain date.

The Commission is consequently of the opinion that there is no legal basis that would allow granting or
claiming compensation for the interest that Member States possibly lose or gain as a result of temporarily
having paid more or less than they should, as a result of the new Decision not being in force at the time of
the adoption of the 2002 budget.

(1) OJ L 253, 7.10.2000.

(2002/C 277 E/048)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0425/02

by Carmen Cerdeira Morterero (PSE) to the Council

(11 February 2002)

Subject: Racist murder in Spain

On 27 January 2002 a young man from Ecuador, Wilson Pacheco, was found dead in Barcelona harbour
(Spain). This young man appears to have been the victim of a beating by bouncers at a bar. He was then
thrown into the sea and left to drown. The whole brutal attack was witnessed by several by-standers who
made no attempt to intervene.

Will the Council analyse the causes of and reasons for the increase in racist and xenophobic violence in
the European Union? Will
it take any measures or initiatives to enhance the work of the European
Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia, in line with the conclusions adopted at the Tampere Summit? Is
the Council taking any particular action to raise public awareness in the Member States?

Reply

(22 July 2002)

The Council was not aware of the incident referred to by the Honourable Member in her question. For
several months now, however, the Council has been considering initiatives designed to prevent sad
occurrences such as that reported by the Honourable Member.