52001AA0009

Opinion No 9/2001

on a proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the criminal-law protection of the Community's financial interests

(2001/0115 (COD) - COM(2001) 272 final)

(submitted pursuant to Article 280(4) EC)

(2002/C 14/01)

THE COURT OF AUDITORS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 280(4) thereof,

Having regard to the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the criminal-law protection of the Community's financial interests,

Having regard to the request for an opinion on the proposal, sent to the Court of Auditors by the Council on 29 October 2001 and received at the Court on 5 November 2001,

HAS ADOPTED THE FOLLOWING OPINION:

The Court of Auditors welcomes the Commission's initiative of a proposal for a Directive on the criminal-law protection of the Community's financial interests, with the aim of replacing and/or integrating the third-pillar instruments with Community acts adopted on the new bases provided by the Treaty of Amsterdam.

The Court notes that this initiative is in line with the recommendation which it made to that effect in its observations on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the protection of the Communities' financial interests and on the proposal for a Council act establishing the Convention on the Protection of the Communities' Financial Interests (observations adopted on 22 February 1995, point 26).

Article 280 EC calls for effective and equivalent protection in the Member States against fraud affecting the financial interests of the Community. In the Court's view, the adoption of new Community legal instruments which aim to implement that requirement has the same purpose as the Conventions and Protocols that are in the process of ratification. The latter will, in any case, cover the same field, albeit on a wider scale.

As it pointed out in the aforementioned observations, the Court considers that a Directive is an appropriate instrument for instituting effective protection of the European Community's financial interests.

In the Court of Auditors' opinion more detail must be provided at certain points, in order to afford the fullest and most effective protection possible for the Community's financial interests. The points in question concern:

- the definition of some of those offences,

- certain aspects of the penalties to be imposed by the Member States.

The Court's proposals for amending the Commission's text in that light are presented in the annexed table, with explanations of the reasons for them.

This Opinion was adopted by the Court of Auditors in Luxembourg at the Court meeting of 8 November 2001.

For the Court of Auditors

Jan O. Karlsson

President

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