CELEX: 31971R0002
Language: en
Date: 1971-01-02 00:00:00
Title: Regulation (EEC, Euratom, ECSC) No 2/71 of the Council of 2 January 1971 implementing the Decision of 21 April 1970 on the replacement of financial contributions from Member States by the Communities' own resources

Official Journal of the European Communities                                      3
5.1.71                               Official Journal of the European Communities                              No L 3 / 1
                      REGULATION (EEC EURATOM ECSC) No 2/71 OF THE COUNCIL
                                                    of 2 January 1971
                     implementing the Decision of 21 April 1970 on the replacement of financial
                       contributions from Member States by the Communities' own resources
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,                        budgets of the three Communities were combined in
                                                                a single budget;
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the
European Coal and Steel Community, and in                       Whereas, in application of that Treaty and of the
particular Article 78f thereof;                                 Decision of 21 April 1970, the Communities' own
                                                                resources must be entered in the Communities'
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the                    budget in accordance with a procedure to be laid
European Economic Community, and in particular                  down;
Article 209 thereof;
                                                                Whereas it is appropriate to determine the time limits
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the                    within which and the procedure whereby < the
                                                                Communities' own resources are entered into the
European Atomic Energy Community, and in
particular Article 183 thereof;                                 accounts, paid over, and allocated to the budget;
                                                                whereas such time limits and procedure should also
                                                                be determined as regards standard refunds to
Having regard to the Treaty establishing a Single
                                                                Member States of the expenses incurred in collection ;
Council and a Single Commission of the European
Communities, and in particular Article 20 thereof;
                                                                Whereas the Member States keep at the disposal of
                                                                the Commission and provide it where required with
Having regard to the Decision of 21 April 19701 on              the documents and information needed to exercise
the replacement of financial contributions from                 the powers conferred upon it as regards the
Member States by the Communities' own resources
                                                                Communities' own resources and the budgetary
(hereinafter called 'Decision of 21 April 1970'), and           procedure ;
in particular Article 6 (2) thereof;
                                                                Whereas the Member States should arrange for
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission;              verifications and inquiries related to establishing and
                                                                making available the Communities' own resources ;
Having regard to the Opinion of the European                    whereas the Commission should exercise its powers
Parliament2 ;                                                   in accordance with this Regulation ;
Whereas the Decision of 21 April 1970 lays down that            Whereas appropriate provision must be made as
the Council must adopt provisions relating to the               regards the share of each Member State and the
control, the making available and the payment of the            factors which should be taken into account when '
Communities' own resources, and the procedure for               applying Article 3 (3 ) and Article 4 ( 1 ) of the
application of Article 3 (3 ) and Article 4 of that             Decision of 21 April 1970, and also the adjustments
Decision ;                                                      between such shares ;
Whereas, pursuant to Article 20 of the Treaty                   Whereas the application of Article 4 (2), (3) and (4)
establishing a Single Council and a Single                      of the Decision of 21 April 1970 requires a common
Commission of the European Communities, the                     definition of the gross national product and of the
                                                                procedure for calculating this ;
1 OJ No L 94, 28.4.1970, p. 19.                                 Whereas it is appropriate to specify the balance to be
2 OJ No C 129, 26.10.1970, p. 26.                               carried over to the following financial year and the
 ---pagebreak--- 4                                    Official Journal of the European Communities
procedure whereby the revenue to be collected and .             (b) of the general provisions laid down by law,
the balance to be carried forward will be allocated to               regulation, administrative action for relating to
the budget;                                                          accounting procedure concerning the establish­
                                                                     ment of own resources and their being made
Whereas close co-operation between Member States                     available to the Commission.
and the Commission will facilitate the application of
this Regulation, which aims at enabling the                     2. The Commission shall pass such information to
Communities to dispose of their own resources under             other Member States at their request.
the best possible conditions ;
                                                                                       Article 5
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION :
                                                                Each Member State shall draw up yearly a closing
                        TITLE I                                 statement of account together with a report on the
                                                                establishment and control of own resources and shall
                    General provisions                          forward this to the Commission before 1 June of the
                                                                year following the financial year concerned.
                        Article 1
                                                                                       Article 6
The Communities' own resources within the meaning
of the Decision of 21 April 1970 (hereinafter called            1 . Accounts for own resources shall be kept by the
'own resources') shall be established by Member                 Treasury of each Member State and broken down
States in accordance with their own provisions laid             into types of resources.
down by law, regulation or administrative action and
shall be made available to the Commission in                    2.    The established entitlements shall be entered in
accordance with this Regulation, without prejudice to           those accounts within a period of sixty days
the provisions to be adopted in due course                      following the end of the month during which the
concerning revenue derived from value added tax.                entitlements were established .
                                                                Each Member State shall forward to the Commission,
                        Article 2                               within the same period, a monthly statement of those
                                                                accounts showing the position as regards the
1.    For the purposes        of " application of this          entitlements established for the month concerned.
Regulation, an entitlement shall be deemed to be
established as soon as the corresponding claim has              3.    The established entitlements shall be entered in
been duly determined by the appropriate department              the accounts of the Communities as revenue to be
or agency of the Member State.                                  collected in so far as the amounts in question have
                                                                not been paid over.
2.    The competent department or agency of the
Member State shall revise the entitlement established           4 . The amounts actually paid over shall be entered
in accordance with paragraph 1 where the need for a             as revenue in the budget of the Communities.
rectification arises .
                        Article 3                                                       TITLE II
Member States shall take all requisite measures to              Provisions for making available and paying over the
ensure that the supporting documents concerning                               Communities' own resources
established entitlements and the making available of
own resources are kept for three years .                                               Article 7
                                                                1.    The amount of own resources established shall
                        Article 4
                                                                be entered by each Memberv State to the credit of the
                                                                account opened with the Treasury for this purpose in
1. .  Each     Member     State     shall   inform    the       the name of the Commission . This account shall be
Commission, at the latter's request:                            kept free of charge.
( a) of the names of the departments or agencies
     responsible for establishing own resources and,            2. Each amount shall be . entered gross . In the
     where appropriate, their statutes ;                        thirty days following notification of each entry, the
 ---pagebreak---                                         Official Journal of the European Communities                                       5
   Commission shall issue a transfer order in favour of             purpose to the Treasury or to the appropriate
   the Member State for the amounts corresponding to                department of each Member State shall be carried out
   the standard refund for the expenses incurred in                 as soon as possible.
   collection as referred to in the fifth subparagraph of
   Article 3 ( 1 ) of the Decision of 21 April 1970.                2. In cases of actual liquidity difficulty and where
                                                                    all possibility of obtaining advances against the
                                                                    financial   contributions    of  Member      States   is
                            Article 8                               exhausted, the Member States shall, at the
                                                                    Commission's request, make an advance on future
   1.    Own resources to be established by each Mem­               resources not exceeding one and a half month's
  ber State together with its financial contribution shall          estimated revenue.
  be the subject of a provisional estimate entered in
  the budget, account being taken of Article 3 (3 ) and            Advances exceeding the amount indicated in the first
  Article 4 ( 1 ) of the Decision of 21 April 1970.                 subparagraph and justified by the requirements of a
                                                                   rectifiying or supplementary preliminary draft budget
  2 . Payment shall be made of the amount actually                  may be authorised by the Council acting by a
  established by the Member State for the kind of                   qualified majority on a proposal from the
  resources involved; where appropriate, payment shall              Commission. The method for settling the accounts
  be made in the proportion fixed by the budget,                   shall be fixed at the same time as the authorisation is
  subject to rectification when closing the accounts.              given .
  3.     Adjustment shall be made for amounts which a                                     Article 12
  Member State may have overpaid or which might
  still be owing.                                                  Transfer of funds shall be made, so far as possible,
                                                                   from currencies of Member States having a revenue
                            Article 9                              surplus into currencies of the other Member States.
                                                                   They shall be restricted to actual cash requirements .
  1 . The entry referred to in Article 7 (1 ) shall be
 made within a period of sixty days following the end
 of the month during which the entitlement was                                             TITLE III
 established .
                                                                         Provisions concerning measures of control
 2.      Any delay in making the entry shall give rise to
 the payment of interest by the Member State                                              Article 13
 concerned at a rate equal to the highest rate of
 discount ruling in the Member States on the due date.             1 . Member States shall take all requisite measures
 That rate shall be increased by 0-25% for each month              to ensure that the amounts corresponding to the
 of delay.                                                         entitlements established under Articles 1 and 2 are
                                                                  made available to the Commission in accordance
                                                                   with this Regulation.
                           Article 10
 1.      The entitlements established under Article 2 (2)         2.     Member States shall not be required to place at
-shall be entered in the monthly return corresponding
                                                                   the disposal of the Commission the amounts
 to the date of revision and shall be added to or                  corresponding to established entitlements solely
 subtracted from the total amount of the established              where, for reasons of force majeure, these amounts
                                                                   could not be collected.
 entitlements .
The provisions of Article 9 (2) shall also apply to               3.     Every    six  months     Member     States   shall
 these new entitlements .                                         communicate to the Commission, where appropriate
                                                                  within the framework of existing procedures,
2. The expenses incurred in collection as referred                comprehensive information and questions of
 to in the fifth paragraph of Article 3 ( 1 ) of the              principle concerning the most important problems
 Decision of 21 April 1970 shall be refunded, account             arising out of the application of this Regulation and
 being taken of the entitlements established under                in particular matters in dispute.
 Article 2 (2).
                                                                                          Article 14
                           Article 11
                                                                  1 . Member States shall carry out the verifications
 1.      The Commission shall have at its disposal for            and inquiries concerning established entitlements and
 implementation of the budget the amounts credited                the making available of own resources . The
 to its account. Orders and instructions which, in                Commission shall make use of its powers in
 accordance with actual needs, it forwards for this               accordance with this Article.
 ---pagebreak---   6                                    Official Journal of the European Communities
  2.     Accordingly, Member States shall :                       purposes, Community transit and inward processing,
                                                                  shall be applied by the appropriate authorities of
 — carry out any additional measures of control the               Member States when establishing own resources.
       Commission may ask for in a reasoned request;
  — associate the Commission, at its request, with the
       measures of control which they are carrying out.
                                                                                              TITLE IV
  Member States shall take all steps required to
  facilitate   these  measures    of control.   Where the         Procedure for application of Article 3 (3) and Article
  Commission is        associated with these measures,                       4 ( 1 ) of the Decision of 21 April 1970
 Member States shall place at is disposal the supporting
  documents referred to in Article 3 . In order to restrict                                  Article 16
  as far as possible additional measures of control the
  Commission may, in special cases, require that certain          1.      For the purpose of this Regulation, 'share of
- documents be put at its disposal.                               each Member State' means the proportion of
                                                                  expenditure entered in the budget - of the
  3.     The    measures    of   control   referred  to   in      Communities and financed by means of own
^ paragraphs 1 and 2 shall not prejudice the following            resources within the meaning of the Decision of 21
  measures :                                                      April 1970 deriving from that State, and also, where
                                                                  appropriate, by means of the financial contributions
  ( a) the measures of control undertaken by Member               of that State, calculated in accordance with the scale
       States in accordance with their own provisions             shown in Article 3 (2) of that Decision.
       laid down by law, regulation or administrative
       action ;
                                                                  2.      The upper limit of the. share of each Member
  (b) the measures provided for in Article 206 of the             State for any given financial year shall correspond to
        Treaty establishing the European Economic                 its share in the financing of the budget of the
        Community and Article 180 of the Treaty estab­            Communities of the preceding financial year,
        lishing the European Atomic Energy Com­                   calculated in accordance with Article 3 (3) of the
        munity;                                                   Decision of 21 April 1970, plus
  (c) the inspection arrangements made pursuant to                — 1% until 31 December 1974;
       Article 209 (c) of the Treaty establishing the
       European Economic Community and Article 183                — 2% between 1 January 1975 and 31 December
                                                                        1977.
        (c) of the Treaty establishing the European
        Atomic Energy Community.
                                                                  3.      The lower limit of the share of each Member
  4. Before the end of 1973, the Commission shall                 State for any given financial year shall correspond to
  report to the Council on the functioning of the                  its share in the financing of the budget of the
                                                                  Communities of the preceding financial year,
  system .
                                                                  calculated in accordance with Article 3 (3 ) of the
                                                                  Decision of 21 April 1970, less
  5.      The Council shall, acting unanimously on a
  proposal from the Commission, determine :                       — 1-5% until 31 December 1974 ;
  ( a) the conditions which officials appointed by the            — 2% between 1 January 1975 and 31 December
        Commission must satisfy when they carry out the                • 1977.
       verifications provided for in this Article, in
       particular with regard to professional secrecy and
       the procedure whereby they exercise their powers                                       Article 17
        of investigation;
                                                                  For the purposes of application of Article 3 (3 ) and
   (b) where required, other provisions for applying              Article 4 ( 1 ) of the Decision , of 21 April 1970 and
        this Article.                                             without prejudice to Article 3 (5) of that Decision,
                                                                  the following factors shall be taken into account:
                                                                   ( a) the expenditure incurred during the financial year
                           Article IS
                                                                         in question, plus the appropriations carried over
                                                                         to the following financial year, less the
  The provisions of Community law applicable to                          appropriations carried over from preceding
  matters referred to in the first paragraph of Article 2                financial years and written off, and also revenues
   of the Decision of 21 April 1970, in particular                       other      than    own    resources   and    financial
   regarding nomenclature, origin, value for customs                     contributions from Member States ;
 ---pagebreak---                                      Official Journal of the European Communities                                        7
 (b) for each Member State, the resources for which             the compensation account which it has drawn up,
      an entitlement has been established during the            showing the debit or credit balance of each Member
      financial year in question.                               State. Each debtor Member State shall pay to each
                                                                creditor Member State part of the amount shown in
                                                                its debit account, that part being proportionate to the
                                                                share of the creditor Member State in the total­
                        Article 18
                                                                amount entered in the credit account.
1.     In so far as the shares of certain Member States
 do not fall within the limits referred to in Article 16        3 . In the month following this communication, the
 (2) and (3 ), the shares above and below the limits            debtor Member States shall pay to the creditor
shall where necessary be adjusted to bring them                 Member States the amount owing in the national
within those limits; any deficiency in the budget shall         currency of the latter at the parity declared to the
then be apportioned among the other Member States               International Monetary Fund.
in accordance with the scale laid down in Article 3
 (2) of the Decision of 21 April 1970.
                                                                                         Article 22
2.     This operation shall be repeated if necessary.
                                                                The percentages to be taken into account for the
                                                                Calculations under Articles 16 to 20 shall, for each
3 . Any surplus resulting from application of this              operation, be rounded off at the fourth decimal place.
Article shall be carried over to the following financial
year.
                                                                                          TITLE V
                         Article 19
                                                                Procedure for application of Article 4 (2), (3 ) and (4)
                                                                             of the Decision of 21 April 1970
For budgets up to and including that for the financial
year ending 31 December 1974, the adjustment
provided for in Article 18 shall be carried out when                                     Article 23
the budget is finally passed and shall be finally
adopted when the accounts for revenue and                       1 . This Article shall be applicable where it may be
expenditure are submitted.                                      necessary to take provisional measures in derogation
                                                                under Article 4 (2) and (3 ) of the Decision of 21 April
                                                                1970 .
                         Article 20
                                                                2.     The gross national product at market prices
1 . From the financial year 1975 up to and                      shall be calculated on the basis of statistics established
including the year ending 31 December 1977, the                 by     the   Statistical   Office    of  the    European
adjustment to the budget provided for in Article 18             Communities ; it shall correspond, for each Member
shall be carried out when the accounts for revenue              State, to the arithmetic average for the first three
and expenditure are submitted.                                  years of the five-year period preceding the financial
                                                                year in respect of which Article 4 (2) and (3 ) of the
                                                                Decision of 21 April 1970 is applicable.
2.     This adjustment shall give rise to financial
compensation between the Member States concerned.
                                                                3 . The gross national product shall be established
                                                                in units of account at the parities declared, to the
                                                                International Monetary Fund.
                        Article 21
                                                                If there is a change in parity in the course of a year, a
1 . The financial compensation referred to in                   parity based on the parities declared to the
Article 20 (2) shall be effected in accordance with the         International Monetary Fund and weighted on a time
third subparagraph of Article 4 (1 ) of the Decision of         basis shall be applied.
21 April 1970.
                                                                4. As long as the derogation provided for in
2.     The Commission shall communicate to the                  Article 4 (2) of the Decision of 21 April 1970 is
Member States, during the month following the                   applied to       one or more        Member States, the
closure of the accounts for revenue and expenditure,            Commission shall fix, in its preliminary draft budget,
 ---pagebreak---  8                                    Official Journal of the European Communities
the estimated percentage of the budget to be covered              — all the revenue credited to the accounts for the
by the financial contributions of the Member State or                 financial year in question, less that part of the
States concerned on the basis of the proportion of                    revenue credited to the accounts for the preceding
their gross national product to the sum total of the                  financial year which was not collected during the
gross national products of the Member States, and                     financial year in question.
shall establish the rate of the value added tax
corresponding to the remainder of the budget to be .
covered by the other Member States. The amounts                  2 . The outstanding amounts within the meaning of
shall be approved in accordance with budgetary                    the second indent of paragraph 1 shall be recorded
procedure.                                                        separately in a suspense account and credited to the
                                                                  account for the financial year during which they are
                                                                  actually collected.
5.       If at the close of the accounts of the financial
year in question the Commission finds that the
Member States which have paid financial                           3 . The balance to be carried over shall be finally
contributions on the basis of the gross national                  determined in accordance with the budgetary
product have in terms of percentage actually covered              procedure at the same time as the account for
by means of those financial contributions more then               revenue and expenditure referred to in Articles 19 and
their share, it shall establish the necessary                     20 are closed .
adjustments taking account of the provisions of the
third subparagraph of Article 4 ( 1 ) of the Decision of
21 April 1970.
                                                                                         TITLE VII
 6.      For the purposes of this Regulation :
 (a) the gross national product at market prices is             . Provisions relating to the Advisory Committee on the
                                                                  Communities' Own Resources, and final provisions
       equal to the gross domestic product at market
       prices plus income from employment, property
       and business received from the rest of the world                                  Article 25
       less the corresponding, flow towards the rest of
       the world ;
                                                                  1.    An Advisory Committee on the Communities'
                                                                  Own Resources (hereinafter called the 'Committee')
 (b ) the gross domestic product at market prices,                is hereby set up .
       which represents the final outcome of production
       by resident productive units, corresponds to the
       total production of goods and services by the              2.    The Committee shall consist of representatives
     . economy, less total intermediate consumption,              of the Member States and of the Commission . Each
       plus import charges.                                       Member State shall be represented on the Committee
                                                                  by not more than five officials.
                                                                  The    Chairman     of  the   Committee   shall  be  a
                          TITLE VI                                representative of the Commission.
Procedure for application of Article 4 (5 ) of the                Secretarial  services  for the    Committee shall   be
                  Decision of 21 April 1970                       provided by the Commission.
                          Article 24                              3 . The Committee shall adopt its own rules of
                                                                  procedure.
1 . The balance of one financial year to be carried,
over to the following financial year, in accordance
with Article 4 (5 ) of the Decision of 21 April 1970,
shall consist of the difference between :                                                Article 26
— expenditure incurred during the financial year in               The Committee shall examine the questions raised by
      question, plus the appropriations carried over to           its Chairman, on his own initiative or at the request
      the following financial year, less appropriations           of the representative of a Member State, which
      carried over from the preceding financial years             concern the application of this Regulation, and in
      and written off; and                                        particular:
 ---pagebreak---                                        Official Journal of the European Communities                                      9
(a) information and communication provided for in                                        Article 27
   • Articles 4 ( 1 ) (b), 5 and 13 (3 );
                                                                  This Regulation shall enter into force on the day
(b) cases of force majeure referred to in Article 13              following its publication in the Official Journal of the
     (2);                                                         European Communities.
(c) measures of control and inspection provided for               It shall have effect from the date of entry into force
     in Article 14 (2).                                           of the Decision of 21 April 1970.
              This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member
              States .
              Done at Brussels, 2 January 1971 .
                                                                                        For the Council
                                                                                         The President
                                                                                        M. SCHUMANN