CELEX: 51983PC0697
Language: en
Date: 1983-12-01
Title: PROPOSAL FOR A COUNCIL REGULATION ( EEC ) ESTABLISHING SPECIAL MEASURES OF COMMUNITY INTEREST RELATING TO TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

N o C 340/4                          Official Journal of the European Communities                                17.12.83
                         Article 5                               provided for in Article 7 of Regulation (EEC) N o
                                                                 3331/82 and in accordance with the procedure laid
The aid from the Community shall be in the form of
                                                                 down in Article 8 of that Regulation.
grants.
                                                                 The Committee may examine any other matter
                         Article 6                               relating to the implementation of the operations in
                                                                 place of food aid put to it by the chairman on his
1.    The aid may cover both external expenditure
                                                                 own initiative or at the request of a representative of
and the local expenditure necessary for implemen-
                                                                 a Member State.
tation of the operations, including maintenance and
operating expenses.
                                                                                          Article 9
Taxes, duties and charges shall be excluded from the
Community financing.                                             In accordance with decisions taken pursuant to
                                                                 Article 8, the Commission shall decide on the
2.    Any counterpart funds that may result from the             conditions governing supply of the aid.
actions listed in Article 3 shall be used in accordance
with the objectives laid down in this Regulation and                                      Article 10
in agreement with the Community.
                                                                 The Commission shall report to the Council and to
                                                                 the European Parliament on the application of this
                         Article 7                               Regulation.
Participation in calls for tenders, invitations to tender
and purchasing and other contracts shall be open on                                       Article 11
equal terms to all natural or legal persons of Member             1.    The Commission shall take all the necessary
States or of the recipient country. Such participation           steps to ensure proper implementation of operations
may be extended to other developing countries                    in place of food aid.
receiving Community aid, particularly in cases of co-
financing or in order to prevent the cost of the                 2.     The Member States shall give the Commission
operations from increasing unduly as a result of                 every assistance and shall provide it with all the
distance, transport difficulties or delivery times.               necessary information for the proper implementation
                                                                  of these operations.
Such participation by other developing countries shall
be of an exceptional nature and shall be authorized                                       Article 12
on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the
procedure laid down in Article 8.                                This Regulation shall enter into force on the third
                                                                  day following its publication in the Official Journal of
                         Article 8                                the European Communities.
Decisions granting aid shall be taken by the                      This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and
Commission following consultation of the Committee                directly applicable in all Member States.
              Proposal for a Council Regulation establishing special measures of Community interest
                                            relating to transport infrastructure
                                                     COM(83)     697final
                           (Submitted by the Commission to the Council on 2 December 1983)
 THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN                                      Having regard to the opinion of the            European
 COMMUNITIES,                                                     Parliament,
 Having regard to the Treaty establishing the
 European Economic Community, and in particular
                                                                  Whereas conditions incompatible with the proper
 Article 235 thereof,
                                                                   functioning of the Community could arise when a
                                                                   Member State's economy, whilst in a special situation,
                                                                   is forced to bear a disproportionate burden in the
 Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,                financing of the Community budget;
 ---pagebreak--- 17. 12. 83                          Official Journal of the European Communities                             No C 340/5
Whereas it is necessary to establish special measures          2.     The projects shall be submitted to the
of Community interest relating to transport infra-             Commission together with all the information
structure and involving financial contributions from           necessary in order to assess:
the Community to transport infrastructure projects in
the Federal Republic of Germany and the United                 — their conformity with the objectives referred to in
Kingdom;                                                            paragraph 1,
                                                               — their conformity with the eligibility criteria laid
Whereas the projects must be specified and supported                down in Article 3,
by the information required in order to retain only
those which are of Community interest in the field to          — their Community interest taking            account    of
which they relate and due account has to be taken of                Community transport policy,
the Commission's proposals for a multiannual
transport programme covering all modes of transport            — the possibilities of verifying the execution of each
and the evaluation of the Community interest of                     project and of auditing expenditure.
transport infrastructure projects;
                                                               3.     The Commission may request any additional
Whereas the Commission should be in a position to              information necessary for the examination of the said
                                                               projects.
check the implementation of the projects provided for
in this Regulation;
                                                                                         Article 3
Whereas the Treaty has not provided for the powers             The projects shall be eligible for a financial contri-
of action required for this purpose,                           bution by the Community provided they are financed
                                                               wholly or in part by public authorities. Projects to be
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:                                   eligible for Community assistance should be shown to
                                                               be of Community interest in terms of the following
                                                               criteria:
                         Article 1
Special measures of Community interest relating to             — the significance of international traffic        and/or
transport infrastructure are hereby established in 1984             transit traffic,
for the Federal Republic of Germany and for the                — the nature of the existing bottlenecks and the
United Kingdom.                                                     improvements to be effected,
                         Article 2                             — the potential for the specific improvement of
                                                                    services to ports and airports serving routes to
 1.    The special measures of Community interest                   other Community countries,
 shall be implemented by means of financial assistance
 to undertake projects which contribute to the re-             — compatibility with other Community policies,
 alization of the common transport policy and, in
                                                               — absence of distortions of competition.
 particular, contribute to one or more of the following
 objectives:
                                                                                         Article 4
 (a) elimination of notorious bottlenecks within the
                                                                1.    The Commission shall examine the projects
      Community;
                                                                submitted to it by each of the Member States
 (b) improvement of rail transport on routes that are           concerned under this Regulation and shall refer them
      important for long-distance transport, particularly       for information to the Committee referred to in
      combined transport;                                       Article 7.
  (c) improvement of traffic links between the outlying         2.     In accordance with the procedure laid down in
      zones and the rest of the Community by trunk              Article 8, the Commission shall decide on:
      routes;
                                                                (a) the projects meriting Community assistance, in
  (d) improvement of facilities for the inter-linking of             the light of the objectives referred to in Article 2
      modes of intra-Community transport, particularly               (1) and the criteria laid down in Article 3;
      for those Member States for which contacts with
                                                                (b) the amount of the Community's financial contri-
      the rest of the Community are influenced by the
                                                                     bution, within the limits of the appropriations
      development of sea and air transport;
                                                                     available.
  (e) modernization of the inland waterway system.
                                                                 3.    The Community's overall financial contribution
  The projects should be related as far as possible to           may not exceed for each project 70 % of the annual
  the main trunk routes for each mode of transport.              public expenditure provided for its execution.
 ---pagebreak--- No C 340/6                           Official Journal of the European Communities                              17.12. 83
4. No financial contribution shall be made in                                            Article 7
respect of expenditure implemented more than 12
months before the entry into force of this Regulation.          1. A management committee (hereinafter called
                                                                'the Committee') is hereby established, composed of
5. The Commission's decisions referred to in                    representatives of the Member States and chaired by a
paragraph 2 shall be published in the Official Journal          representative of the Commission.
of the European Communities.
                                                                2. Within the Committee, the votes of the Member
                          Article 5                             States shall be weighted in accordance with Article
                                                                148 (2) of the Treaty. The chairman shall not vote.
1. Appropriations relating to projects shall be
entered in the budget of the European Communities.                                       Article 8
2. As soon as a decision has been taken pursuant                1. Where the procedure laid down in this Article is
to Article 4 (2), the Commission shall make a                   to be followed, the chairman shall refer the matter to
payment of 90 % of the amount of the Community                  the Committee either on his own initiative or at the
contribution provided for.                                      request of the representative of a Member State.
3. Payment of the 10 % balance shall be effected                2. The representative of the Commission shall
immediately after the sum referred to in paragraph 2            submit drafts of decisions to be taken. The
has been used up, as certified by the Government of             Committee shall deliver its opinion on the drafts
the Member State concerned, provided that                       within a time limit which the chairman may fix
implementation of the project proceeds as planned               according to the urgency of the questions under
and that on-the-spot checks have been carried out in            consideration. An opinion shall be adopted by a
accordance with the procedure provided for in                   qualified majority in accordance with Article 148 (2)
Article 6.                                                      of the Treaty.
                          Article 6                             3. The Commission shall adopt decisions which
                                                                shall apply immediately. However, if these decisions
1. The Commission shall ensure that each project                are not in accordance with the opinion of the
is implemented in accordance with this Regulation,              Committee, they shall be communicated to the
with the provisions adopted for its application and             Council as soon as possible and at the latest within
with the Regulations adopted pursuant to Article 209            one month. In that event, the Commission shall defer
of the Treaty.                                                  application of the decisions it has adopted for not
To this end, each of the Member States concerned                more than two months from the date of such a
shall supply the Commission with all information                communication. The Council, acting by a qualified
requested by it and shall take all steps with regard to         majority, may take a different decision within two
Community-assisted projects to facilitate such                  months.
supervision as the Commission may consider appro-
priate, including on-the-spot checks made at its                                         Article 9
request with the approval of the Member State
concerned by the latter's competent authorities, in             Each of the Member States concerned shall, in
which Commission officials may participate.                     agreement with the Commission, take the necessary
                                                                steps to ensure that suitable publicity is given to the
Each Member State concerned shall make available to             assistance granted under the Regulation.
the Commission, for a period of three years from its
transfer of the balance referred to in Article 5 (3), all                                Article 10
 supporting documents or certified copies thereof
 relating to expenditure.                                       The Commission shall report to the Council and to
                                                                the European Parliament pn the application of this
 2. Where a project is not implemented in                       Regulation.
 conformity with this Regulation or departs sub-
 stantially from decisions taken for its application, the                                Article 11
 Commission may suspend payments still due. In this
 case, it may also decide that sums already paid or still       This Regulation shall enter into force on the day of
 due are to be allocated, in accordance with the                 its publication in the Official Journal of the European
 procedure laid down in Article 8, to other projects             Communities.
 submitted under this Regulation. If, in the opinion of
 the Commission, no other project or measure is                  This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and
 available, it shall recover the payments made.                  directly applicable in all Member States.