| dc.description.abstract | Under Regulation No 1552/891the Member States are responsible for collecting"traditional" own resources and are obliged to take all the necessary steps to ensure that debtsdue to the Community budget (chiefly import duties) are established, entered in the accounts,recovered and made available to the Commission.The Commission is kept informed of these activities by various reports it receives from theMember States on the basis of Regulation No 1552/89. As regardsinspection workinparticular, Article 17(3) of the Regulation provided that Member States must keep theCommission informed of their activities by means of half-yearly reports.With the adoption of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1355/96,2the reports became annual andthe Commission was required to produce a summary of the reports for the budgetaryauthority.
These summary reports were intended to take stock of inspection activities andfindings at national level and provide an overall view of the volume of fraud and irregularitiesinvolving the European Communities' traditional own resources. They should also enable theCommission to conduct an additional documentary check and make optimum use of riskanalysis in drawing up its own inspection programme.In view of the disappointing experience with the previous half-yearly reports, it was agreedwhen Regulation No 1552/89 was amended in 1996 that a solution should be found for theconsiderable discrepancies between the national reports and differences in the interpretationof various basic concepts. After extensive discussion within the Advisory Committee on OwnResources, a harmonised model annual report was sent to the Member States in March 1997.3This set out the overall data to be provided on cases of fraud and irregularity and aimed atgreater consistency in the accounting data supplied.
As the Member States found it difficult to harmonise the data, there was a considerable delaybefore the Commission received the annual reports for 1996. When it examined theinformation it had received, the Commission concluded that it was better not to publish itssummary report, as the Member States had failed to follow the model. However, a summarydocument was drawn up in May 19984andexaminedbytheAdvisoryCommitteeonOwnResources on 8 July 1998.Analysis of the reports for 19975has shown that the results largely failed to live up toexpectations: the Commission considered that it couldnot yet reach any completely validconclusions in view of the absence of comparable or, in some cases, reliable data.3.From the 1997 report analysis the Commission did establish that there had been a netimprovement in the presentation of information by Member States even if supplementaryinformation had to be requested in some instances. It considered that publication of even anincomplete and non-standardised report could throw light on current difficulties in connectionwith traditional own resources and encourage the Member States to improve the quality of theinformationtheysupply.It was also planned that there should be an analysis of questions of principle relating to theproblems encountered in applying Regulation No 1552/89, including those raised in mattersin dispute. However, from past experience, the Commission has concluded that any problemsreported by the Member States will be better dealt with by being brought to the attention ofthe ACOR as they arise rather than analysed in the summary reports drawn up underArticle 17(3).
This analysis tabulates the key elements of the model report which the Commission has sentto the Member States. Each table is accompanied by appropriate explanations and gives thereasons for the production of the indicator. |
