4.5.2007   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 101/4

1-2

3-6

7-13

1.

The objective pursued by the draft regulation is the sound application of Community customs and agricultural legislation, providing the Commission and the Member States' customs and other authorities with more effective mechanisms to assist them in preventing, investigating and prosecuting operations that are in breach of customs and agricultural legislation. To that end the proposal:

2.

The Court has examined the Commission proposal in the light of the results of its audit work.

3.

The Court considers that the proposal will contribute to achieving the objective pursued by the regulation provided that the Commission takes proper action in order to implement without further delay the IT infrastructure, databases and software applications needed for its practical operation. However, the proposed regulation does not address important issues already highlighted by the Court which still remain valid and which are referred to in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6.

4.

The Court identified a potential overlap between the RIF (Risk Information Form) and MA (mutual assistance) communications and recommended that OLAF and DG TAXUD should streamline both reporting and monitoring and work towards a more integrated approach (3).

5.

The Court found that in the special case of the mutual assistance procedure in the customs and agriculture sectors there is no systematic follow-up by OLAF (4). As at February 2007 the situation remained unchanged.

6.

The Court draws attention to its recommendation in its Special Report No 11/2006 on the Community Transit System (5) that the Commission should take measures to improve the reliability of sources of information on fraud, and should make better use of them by developing risk management strategies. As such, the Commission should strive to improve the completeness and reliability of MA communications and the CIS.

7.

The first indent of Article 2(1) of the draft regulation defines customs legislation including a reference to the body of Community provisions governing value added tax as regards imports and exports. The Court welcomes this approach but considers that, for reasons of consistency with the definition of customs legislation contained in the Naples II Convention (6), this article should also refer to the body of provisions adopted at Community level for harmonised excise duties on importation together with the associated implementing provisions.

8.

The new paragraph 2 added to Article 15 would require the inclusion in Article 2(1) of definitions of ‘progressive communication’, ‘communication at regular intervals’, ‘structured format’ and ‘unstructured format’. Moreover, the option of communicating at regular intervals is in contradiction with the current obligation existing in Article 15 to immediately notify to the other Member States concerned information relating to operations which constitute, or appear to them to constitute, breaches of customs and agricultural legislation.

9.

The Court considers that the possibility provided for MA communications to be used for the purpose of strategic analysis pursuant to the new paragraph 7 of Article 18 can help reinforce the effectiveness of OLAF. Nevertheless, the Court considers that the proposal should have gone further in Article 18a by giving the Commission full access to the information available in systems already implemented or foreseen (7) for all kinds of goods (not only for sensitive goods) for the purpose of operational and strategic analysis and risk management while ensuring adequate protection of personal data.

10.

Article 18b does not clearly provide the legal basis for a permanent infrastructure in order to ensure the coordination of joint customs operations open to the participation of representatives or liaison officers of competent international or regional organizations, European Union bodies or agencies and third countries, as announced in the explanatory memorandum.

11.

The Court considers that Article 23(2) of the draft regulation does not essentially differ from the current article and that the aim of the CIS should be better explained specifying that the effectiveness of the cooperation and control procedures of the competent authorities can now also be increased through operational and strategic analysis.

12.

The Court invites the Commission to include in Articles 41b(2)(b) and 41c(2)(b) the excise duties identification number (SEED identification number) foreseen in the Regulation on administrative cooperation in the field of excise duties (8) and in the Directive 92/12/EEC (9) in order to facilitate investigations by either the Commission or the competent authorities of a Member State.

13.

Although the Commission indicated that the proposal has no financial impact on revenue, the Court considers that the proposal should have a positive impact on traditional and VAT resources through the reduction of fraud, and this impact should have been estimated in the legislative financial statement of the proposal in order to allow a more accurate assessment of the value for money of the project.