Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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EEC Treaty - Allocation of powers and conditions governing their exercise - Commission - Powers of implementation conferred by the Council to be exercised in accordance with procedures determined by the Council - Implementation - Concept - Adoption of acts of individual application - Included - Compatibility with the existence of the Commission' s own powers to implement the budget

( EEC Treaty, Arts 145, 155, 205, 206a(2 ) and 206b; Financial Regulation, Art . 80 )

Summary

The concept of implementation for the purposes of the third indent of Article 145 of the EEC Treaty as amended by the Single European Act comprises both the drawing up of implementing rules and the application of rules to specific cases by means of acts of individual application . Since the Treaty uses the word "implementation" without restricting it by the addition of any further qualification, that term cannot be interpreted so as to exclude acts of individual application .

When the Council exercises its right under Article 145 to make the adoption of decisions of individual application having financial effects which it empowers the Commission to take subject to the "management committee" procedure, which is one of the procedures provided for under that article, it does not encroach upon the Commission' s power under Article 205 of the Treaty to implement the budget on its own responsibility . The Commission' s power to implement the budget is not such as to modify the division of powers resulting from the various provisions of the Treaty which authorize the Council and the Commission to adopt generally applicable or individual measures within specific areas, and from the institutional provisions of the third indent of Article 145 and Article 155 . Moreover, even though an individual measure may almost inevitably entail the commitment of expenditure, the two must be distinguished - particularly since the power to adopt the administrative decision and the power to commit the expenditure may be entrusted, within the internal organization of each institution, to different officials .

That interpretation, which rules out the possibility that commitments of expenditure might in themselves and irrespective of any substantive decision impose legally binding obligations on the Community vis-à-vis third parties, is, moreover, in conformity with the system of supervision of the implementation of the budget in which the European Parliament has been given, under Article 206b of the Treaty, the power to give a discharge to the Commission, and in which the Court of Auditors is required to assist the European Parliament within the limits defined in Article 206a(2 ) of the Treaty and Article 80 of the Financial Regulation .