CELEX: 31977D0575
Language: en
Date: 1977-04-25 00:00:00
Title: Council Decision of 25 April 1977 giving a discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget and of the amending and supplementary budgets of the European Communities for the financial year 1975

No L 229 / 8                         Official Journal of the European Communities                                 7. 9 . 77
                                                     COUNCIL
                                                 COUNCIL DECISION
                                                     of 25 April 1977
             giving a discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget
             and of the amending and supplementary budgets of the European Communities for the
                                                   financial year 1975
                                              (77/575/EEC, Euratom, ECSC)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES ,                        begin operating, the second (3) constituting the
                                                                 second tranche of the Communities ' contribution to
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the                     an international emergency aid project for the
European Coal and Steel Community, and in                        assistance of the developing countries most affected
particular Article 78d thereof,                                  by the crisis, and the third (4) increasing research and
                                                                 investment appropriations and the appropriations for
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the                     the Guarantee Section of the European Agricultural
European Economic Community, and in particular                   Guidance and Guarantee Fund ;
Article 206 thereof,
                                                                 Whereas the Commission made payments relating to
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the                     appropriations carried over from the financial year
European Atomic Energy Community, and in                         1974 ( or previous financial years) from an
particular Article 180 thereof,                                  appropriation of 2 321 976 447 units of account over
                                                                and above the aforementioned appropriation amounts ;
Having regard to the Treaty establishing a single                Whereas certain appropriations available at the close
Council and a single Commission of the European                  of the financial year 1975 have been carried forward
Communities, and in particular Article 20 thereof,               to the financial year 1976 ;
Having regard to the accounts of revenue and                     Whereas the observations and comments in the Audit
expenditure and the financial statements relating to             Board's report on the accounts for the financial year
the transactions made under the budget for the                   1975 contain references to certain irregularities and
financial year 1975 ,                                            errors and whereas appropriate action should be
                                                                 taken on this matter ;
Having regard to the report of the Audit Board on
the accounts for the financial year 1975 to which                Whereas, however, the general implementation by the
report are annexed the replies by the institutions to            Commission of the budgets for the financial year
the comments concerning them ,                                   1975 was such as to entitle it to be given a discharge
                                                                 in respect of the implementation of these budgets.
Whereas the European Parliament has adopted the
budget of the European Communities for the                       HAS DECIDED AS FOLLOWS :
financial year 1975 ( 1 );
                                                                                           Article 1
Whereas during the financial year 1975, three
amending and supplementary budgets were adopted,                 The views of the Council on the observations and
the first (2) amending research and investment                   comments in the Audit Board's report on the
appropriations, and enabling the Regional Fund to                accounts for the financial year 1975 are as set out in
                                                                 the Annex.
H OJ No L 54, 28 . 2 . 1975, p . 1 .                             (3) OJ No L 175, 7. 7. 1975, p. 59 .
(2) OJ No L 175, 7. 7. 1975, p . 1 .                             (4 ) OJ No L 40, 16. 2 . 1976, p . 1 .
 ---pagebreak--- 7. 9 . 77                           Official Journal of the European Communities                     No L 229/9
                                                       Article 2
          1.     The Council notes that :
                                                                                  (units of account)
          ( a) total payments made from the appropriations for the financial
                year (management of own resources) amount to                      5 004 589 554-62
          ( b) total payments made from appropriations to be financed accord­
                ing to an ad hoc scale amount to                                          80 063-78
          ( c) total appropriations carried forward from the financial year 1975
                to the financial year 1976 ( management of own resources)
                amount to                                                         1 238 176 554-61
          2.     The Council notes that the sum of the totals under paragraph 1 ,
          viz.:                                                                   6 242 846 173-01
          is to be covered by equivalent revenue as follows :
          (a) in accordance with Decision 70/243/ECSC. EEC, Euratom (*) of
                21 April 1970 on the replacement of financial contributions from
                Member States by the Communities' own resources :
                — by own resources                                                3 741 101 246-20
                — by financial contributions                                      2 151 995 462-70
                — by the amount provided for the appropriations carried
                    forward from the financial year 1974 to the financial year
                    1975 , and which is cancelled                                    29 157 480-59
                — by revenue connected with research and investment activities         6 035 500-81
                — by Member States' contributions to the Euratom comple­
                    mentary programmes                                               12 633 429-30
                — by the amount of the ECSC levies allocated to administrative
                   expenditure                                                       18 000 000-00
                — by other miscellaneous revenue                                    283 842 989-70
          (b) by financial contributions in accordance with Article 200 ( 1 ) of
               the EEC Treaty                                                             80 063-78
          3 . The Council notes that payments from appropriations carried
          forward from the financial year 1974 amount to                          1 406 557 950-84
                                                       Article 3
          The Council hereby gives a discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation
          of the budget and of the amending and supplementary budgets of the European Com­
          munities for the financial year 1975 , as shown by the following table.
           (») OJ No L 94, 28 . 4 . 1970, p . 19 .
 ---pagebreak---                                                                                                                                                   (unsts of account)
                    Amounts carried                                    Total
                    over from 1975                                 appropriations                                           Balances carried
  nts against                                                                        Commitments at     Payments made by
                     to 1976 from           Cancellations             for the                                                forward from         Cancellations
   priations                                                                        31 December 1975    31 December 1975
                     appropriations                                financial year                                           1975 to 1976 (*)
   t forward        brought forward                                    1975
                                                                                                                                                                                No L 229/ 10
     2                     3                      4                      5                 6                   7                    8                   9
                          —
   62 582-16                               3 753 980-16           799 282 352-00    768 809 648-94       615 127 010-94     164 78 7 821-92      19 367 519-14
                          —                                                                                                  22 422 387-95
   65 507-06                                 835 032-99           101 229 998-00      83 944 015-69       77 449 012-06                           1 358 597-99
   84 092-82       154 835 641-02          1 738 963-47           366 140 000-00    353 876 024-46         7 995 464-48     353 958 639-94        4 185 895-58
                           —                    —                                                                                                      —
    —                                                             150 000 000-00    299 825 530-26        90 668 048-86      59 331 951-14
   83 659-74                               9 363 162-76          4 336 333 997-00 4 336 333 997-00 4 003 481 249-34         332 852 747-66
   63 801-62       730 774 409-92          3 289 513-75 (2)       262 500 000-00     149 011 891-08       38 420 195-56     223 809 970-86          269 833-58
                          —                                                                                                   81 013 035-14         265 877-70
   98 307-44                              10 827 791-60           252 807 550 00     246 853 065-62      171 528 637-16
  57 950-84        885 610 050-94         29 808 444-73          6 268 293 897-00 6 238 654 173-05 5 004 669 618-40        1 238 176 554-61     25 447 723-99
                                                                                                                                                                       Official Journal of the European Communities
 nce between columns 6 and 7 as they include the carry-forwards referred to in Article 6 (1 ) (b) of Financial Regulation 73/91 /ECSC , EEC, Euratom ( OJ No L 116,
     (see revenue and expenditure accounts, Volume II, p. 13).
e at Luxembourg, 25 April 1977.
                                                                                        For the Council
                                                                                         The President
                                                                                            J. SILKIN
                                                                                                                                                                            7. 9 . 77
 ---pagebreak--- 7 . 9 . 77                            Official Journal of the European Communities                            No L 229/ 11
                                                                   /
                                                             ANNEX
                              POSITION OF THE COUNCIL REFERRED TO IN ARTICLE 1
Extra-budgetary accounts                                          imposed on such transfers, advantage is being taken of
                                                                  the provision for speculative purposes.
(Section 5 (c) of the report)
The Council draws the attention of the institutions to the        European Social Fund
Audit Board's comments on the use of bank accounts
and asks the institutions concerned to limit as far as            (Sections 31 to 40 of the report)
possible the amounts in existing accounts.
                                                                  The Council agrees with the Audit Board's comments on
                                                                  the delays in payments made by the Fund. These delays
Staff expenditure                                                 have in some cases caused the cancellation of appropri­
                                                                  ations and in other cases the re-allocation of funds to
(Sections 9 to 20 of the report)                                  other projects which the Commission had originally
                                                                  considered to be less urgent.
The Council has the following comments :
— the Audit Board's comments are felt to be justified,            European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund
                                                                  Distillation of table wines
— the Commission is asked to comply with the
     provisions concerning the staff of the European              (Section 53 of the report)
     Communities, since the strict application of existing
     provisions is the only way of ensuring uniform               The Council disagrees with the Commission's view that
     treatment for all staff,                                     the forwarding of detailed calculations to the Council
                                                                  would complicate the taking of political decisions. On the
— it is pointed out that if the Commission feels that a           contrary, if supplied with detailed information the
    particular provision is having an undesirable effect,         Council would be able to take its decisions in fuller
    it should duly propose the appropriate amendments ;           knowledge of the facts.
     the Commission should furthermore preferably inform
     the Council, prior to taking unilateral action, of any­      Food aid
     major difficulties in applying in practice the provisions
     adopted by the Council.                                      (Sections 80 to 83 of the report)
                                                                  The Council draws the Commission's attention to the
The Council considers that the provisions concerning staff        delays in implementation and clearance both of the aid
cannot be freely interpreted .                                    programmes and of emergency aid. It asks the Commission
                                                                  to submit a report on the measures being taken in order
The Council supports the Audit Board's comments                   to prevent such delays and in order to recover the costs
regarding the exchange rates applied for the re-purchase of       of delays attributable to the recipient countries from
                                                                  those countries.
pension rights (Section 17 (e) of the report).
                                                                  Research and investment appropriations
Transfer of emoluments in a currency other than that of
the country of employment                                         (Sections 94 to 100 of the report)
                                                                  The Council draws the Commission's attention to the
(Section 18 of the report)
                                                                  need for further improvement in the Joint Research
                                                                 Centre accounting system . It notes that the Commission
The Council agrees with the Audit Board's view. It is            will make some effort to improve the financial
apparent from paragraph (e) that, despite the restrictions       management of research and investment appropriations.