Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2016/804 of 17 May 2016

What it is

to amend Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 609/2014 on the methods and procedure for making available the traditional, VAT and GNI-based own resources and on the measures to meet cash requirements. ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the Council adopts the act after consulting the European Parliament but without being obliged to follow its opinion. BACKGROUND : the own resources legislative package consists of Decision 335/2014 on the system of Union’s own resources (the Own Resources Decision), Regulation No 608/2014 laying down implementing measures and Regulation No 609/2014 which is a recast of Regulation No 1150/2000. Regulation No 609/2014 deals with the rules on making own resources available and the measures to meet cash requirements. It contains practical arrangements in respect of the establishment of traditional own resources, conservation of supporting documents, administrative cooperation, the applicable rate for the GNI-based own resource, accounts to be kept for own resources, the timing for making them available and for making adjustments and provisions concerning cash management and irrecoverable amounts. The Committee on Budgets adopted the report by Gérard DEPREZ (ALDE, BE) and Janusz LEWANDOWSKI (EPP, PL) on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 609/2014 on the methods and procedure for making available the traditional, VAT and GNI-based own resources and on the measures to meet cash requirements. The committee called on European parliament to approve the Commission proposal . However, Members stressed the need for efficient rules on how Member States make their timely contributions to the Union budget available, to allow the Commission to effectively manage its treasury. In this regard, they supported the option granted to the Commission to ask Member States for the payment of a third twelfth of VAT and GNI resource in the first half of the year, in order to allow the Commission to reduce a more important part of the previous year’s payment backlog in the European Agriculture Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and in the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), and to reduce default interest. Moreover, Members welcomed the proposed amendment to the Article 12 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 609/2014, which aims not only at increasing the incentives to pay on time by making more expensive any late payment but also at ensuring proportionality, by capping the maximum increase of the interest rate at 20 percentage points. The adjustments of contributions should be dealt with as automatically as possible to avoid political interference with the agreed ways of financing the Union budget and to limit the discretion left to Member States as to the timing of their additional contributions resulting from GNI adjustments to the Union budget to a minimum. The Commission proposal to change the due date for making available the adjustments to the beginning of the year instead of on 1 December has been welcomed by the Members. The resolution stressed the fact that the own resources system remains too complex and needs to be fundamentally reformed with the next Multiannual Financial Framework. Against this…

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