European Parliament resolution on the draft interinstitutional agreement presented by the Commission on the operating framework for the European regulatory agencies
Date: 2005-12-01
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: EU control, EU office or agency, interinstitutional agreement, operation of the Institutions

22.11.2006

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 285 E/123

TEXT PROPOSED
BY THE COMMISSION

Thursday 1 December 2005

AMENDMENTS
BY PARLIAMENT

Amendment 1
Article 7, paragraph 1

1.
The Member State where the value added tax was incurred
shall make its decision concerning the application for refund
known to the applicant within three months of the date on
which the application was submitted.

1.
The Member State where the value added tax was incurred
shall make its decision concerning the application for refund
known to the applicant within three months of the date on
which the application was submitted. The Member State of
establishment shall notify the Member State of refund when
the taxable person submits his application for a VAT refund
to the competent tax authority.

Amendment 2
Article 7, paragraph 1, subparagraph 1a (new)

The three-month period shall start from the date on which the
tax authority in a Member State of refund receives the elec-
tronic refund data from the tax authority in the Member State
of establishment concerning the taxable person in question,
who shall be automatically informed thereof.

Amendment 3
Article 7, paragraph 3, subparagraph 2a (new)

The refund transfer deadline shall be one week after expiry of
the three-month decision-making period.

Amendment 4
Article 7, paragraph 4, subparagraph 1

4.
In specific cases, a Member State where value added tax
has been incurred may request additional information within
three months of the date on which application is submitted.
After that period has elapsed, no additional information may
be requested.

4.
Where the tax authority of a Member State of refund
requests that a further investigation be conducted, the period
for determining whether a taxable person is entitled to a
refund may be extended. However, the period between the
date on which the refund application is submitted and the
date of the refund transfer may not exceed four months.

P6_TA(2005)0460

European regulatory agencies

European Parliament resolution on the draft interinstitutional agreement presented by the Commis-
sion on the operating framework for the European regulatory agencies

The European Parliament,

— having regard to the Commission's draft text (COM(2005)0059),

— having regard to its resolution of 13 January 2004 on the Communication from the Commission:

‘The operating framework for the European regulatory agencies’ (1),

(1) OJ C 92 E, 16.4.2004, p. 119.

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— having regard to the declaration on Article 10 of the Treaty establishing the European Community,
adopted by the Intergovernmental Conference at Nice, relating to the duty of sincere cooperation on
the part of the Community institutions,

— having regard to the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of
11 October 2005 on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council
amending Regulation (EEC) No 1210/90 on the establishment of the European Environment Agency
and the European Environment Information and Observation Network as regards the term of office of
the Executive Director,

— having regard to the question for oral answer to the Council tabled jointly by the Committee on
Constitutional Affairs and the Committee on Budgets and the answer given by the Council at the sitting
of 15 November 2005,

— having regard to Rule 108(5) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas the considerations set out in its resolution of 13 January 2004 essentially remain relevant;
whereas, in particular, it is essential to rationalise and simplify the structure of the present and future
agencies in the interests of clarity, transparency and legal certainty, and in view of a Union with 25 and
more Member States, and the assessments to be made when setting up new agencies must be based on
the most stringent criteria, inter alia, as regards the extent to which the agencies' activities would be
proper and worthwhile,

B. whereas, in presenting its draft text, the Commission has complied with Parliament's call for the con-
clusion of an interinstitutional agreement spelling out common guidelines prior to the adoption of a
framework regulation,

C. whereas the above-mentioned declaration on Article 10 of the Treaty adopted by the Intergovernmental
Conference at Nice states that, when it proves necessary, in the context of their duty of sincere coop-
eration, to facilitate the application of the provisions of the Treaty, the Parliament, the Council and the
Commission may conclude interinstitutional agreements,

1. Welcomes the presentation of the draft text by the Commission;

Regrets the fact that the Council is not prepared to begin negotiations with a view to concluding an

2.
agreement on the basis of the Commission's draft text;

3.

Calls on the Commission to continue its efforts to prevail upon the Council to change its mind;

Points out that, when examining future proposals for setting up agencies, it will take the following

4.
principles, in particular, as a basis:

(a)

the setting up of an agency should come under the normal legislative procedure, i.e., as a rule, the
codecision procedure, and recourse to the procedure under Article 308 of the Treaty should be confined
to exceptional cases where the Treaty provisions relating to the subject in issue do not constitute an
adequate legal basis;

(b) any proposal for setting up an agency should be accompanied by a cost-benefit assessment and by a
thorough impact assessment showing that the agency option is more cost-effective than having the
relevant tasks performed by the Commission departments themselves;

(c)

(d)

the autonomy which is to be conferred on the agency in respect of matters falling within its remit does
not relieve the Commission of its political responsibility for the agency's activities;

the way in which the role of the Commission in selecting and appointing the executive body, generally
the director, is fulfilled must reflect this requirement for political responsibility and accountability;

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‘ex-post scrutiny’

(e) Parliament should exercise ‘ex-ante scrutiny’ in the form of hearings of the candidate(s) for the office of
director,
in the form of the discharge for the implementation of the budget and
ongoing scrutiny through monitoring of the agency's activities by its specialised committees; a decision
to extend the term of office of a director should be taken solely by the board of directors, on the basis
of an evaluation of the director's first term of office;

(f)

the Council should nominate to the supervisory body, the board of directors, representatives with
acknowledged expertise, whom the Parliament may invite to a hearing prior to their appointment, if
it deems it appropriate; the number of such representatives should be in reasonable proportion to the
tasks and importance of the agency, with the aim in the longer term of reducing the size of the board
of directors for reasons of efficiency; as long as the number of representatives on the board of directors
corresponds to the number of Member States, Parliament, for its part, should designate two members
of the board of directors;

(g) an administrative appeal against an agency's acts which have legal effect vis-à-vis third parties may be
lodged with the Commission, which may remedy them; the Commission's decision may be challenged
before the courts;

5.
Is concerned about the continual growth in the number of decentralised agencies (at present 23, as
against 5 in 1995), as there is a consequent risk of the Commission's executive role being dismantled and
fragmented into a plethora of bodies that work largely in an intergovernmental manner, and therefore
wishes, at least during the period of reflection in the ratification process for the Treaty establishing a Con-
stitution for Europe, to see no further such agencies set up;

6. Welcomes, in the light of the growing cost of decentralised agencies to the Community budget, the
fact that, pursuant to the draft text, the Commission will be required to back up any proposal for setting up
an agency with an impact assessment, which will not only apply the subsidiarity and proportionality prin-
ciples but will also include as full as possible an ex-ante evaluation of the likely costs of monitoring and
coordination and the impact on human resources and administrative expenditure;

Notes that, whilst agencies receive a subsidy under the Community budget, policy decisions relating to
7.
the implementation of Community law are taken by representatives of the Member States on their board of
directorss;

Regrets the fact that the Commission is apparently not prepared to provide a clear statement of the
8.
financial impact of the existence and development of the current agencies for the period covered by the next
financial perspective;

9.
Calls for the principle of a maximum rate of increase in agencies' administrative expenditure to be laid
down in the interinstitutional agreement, comparable to that required to be applied in the case of the
Commission;

Calls, unlike the draft text, for the interinstitutional agreement gradually to be applied to existing

10.
agencies;

11.
Calls on the Conference of Committee Chairmen to review cooperation between the standing com-
mittees with responsibility for agencies, the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Con-
trol in monitoring agencies' activities, and to update the ‘guidelines’ adopted in July 1998;

Calls on its Committee on Constitutional Affairs to monitor further developments in respect of the

12.
Commission's draft text and to refer the matter to it again if necessary;

13.
Invites the chairmen and rapporteurs of the Committees on Constitutional Affairs and on Budgets to
take up informal contacts on a political level with representatives of the Council and of the Commission in
order to explore the developments in the Council with regard to horizontal measures dealing with the
future structure of regulatory agencies;

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the govern-

14.
ments of the Member States.