23.6.2006   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 171/1

(1)

Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 created a European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and a European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) operating in the context of the shared management of expenditure and assigned revenue under the Community budget. It lays down general requirements and rules on the keeping of accounts and declarations of expenditure and revenue by the paying agencies, and the reimbursement of expenditure by the Commission. These rules and requirements should be clarified, distinguishing between the detailed rules of application common to the two Funds and those specific to each of them.

(2)

With a view to ensuring the proper management of the appropriations entered in the budget of the European Communities for the two Funds, it is essential that each paying agency should keep separate accounts relating exclusively to expenditure to be financed by the EAGF and by the EAFRD respectively. To this end, the accounts kept by the paying agencies should clearly show, for each of the two Funds, the expenditure effected and revenue assigned under Article 3(1), Article 4 and Article 34 respectively of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, and allow this expenditure and revenue to be linked to the funds made available to them under the Community budget.

(3)

The common agricultural policy is financed in euro, while allowing Member States which do not form part of the euro zone to make payments to beneficiaries in their national currency. To enable all the expenditure and revenue to be consolidated, it is therefore necessary to lay down that the paying agencies concerned must be able to provide data relating to the expenditure and revenue in both euro and the currency in which the expenditure was incurred and the revenue received.

(4)

To ensure sound management of financial flows, in particular because the Member States themselves mobilise the funds to cover the expenditure referred to in Article 3(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 or receive an advance for that referred to in Article 4 of that Regulation before the Commission finances this expenditure in the form of monthly reimbursements of the expenditure effected, the Member States should collect the information necessary for these reimbursements and keep it at the disposal of the Commission as and when expenditure and revenue are effected or transmit it to the Commission at regular intervals. Management methods specific to the EAGF and to the EAFRD must be taken into account in this respect and the provision and transmission of information to the Commission by the Member States should be organised at intervals adapted to the management method of each Fund, without prejudice to the obligation of the Member States to keep the information drawn up for the purposes of proper monitoring of expenditure at the disposal of the Commission.

(5)

The general obligations as regards the keeping of accounts by the paying agencies cover detailed data required for the management and control of Community funds, the details of which are not required for the reimbursement of expenditure. The information and details relating to expenditure to be financed by the EAGF or the EAFRD which must be sent to the Commission at regular intervals should therefore be specified.

(6)

Notifications of information by the Member States to the Commission must enable it to use the information sent directly and as effectively as possible for the management of EAGF and EAFRD accounts and the relevant payments. To achieve this objective, all information to be made available or to be communicated between the Member States and the Commission should be sent electronically or in digital form. However, as transmission by other means may be considered necessary, the cases in which this obligation is justified should be laid down.

(7)

Under Article 8(1)(c)(i) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, for measures relating to operations financed by the EAGF and the EAFRD, declarations of expenditure, which also act as payment requests, must also be sent to the Commission accompanied by the requisite information. To allow the Member States and the paying agencies to draw up these declarations of expenditure in accordance with harmonised rules, and to allow the Commission to take payment requests into consideration, the conditions under which this expenditure may be taken into account under the respective EAGF and EAFRD budgets and the rules that apply to entering expenditure and revenue in the accounts, in particular the assigned revenue and any corrections to be made, and to their actual declaration, should be laid down.

(8)

Under Article 4 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 1883/78 of 2 August 1978 laying down general rules for the financing of interventions by the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, Guarantee Section (2), the amount to be financed by an intervention measure is to be determined on the basis of the annual accounts drawn up by the paying agencies. That Regulation also lays down the rules and conditions governing these accounts. Following the abolition of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) by Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, and its replacement by the EAGF as regards the financing of these measures, the terms under which the financing of such measures by the EAGF fits into the system of declarations of expenditure and monthly payments should be made clear.

(9)

Under Article 15(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, expenditure in October counts as being made in the month of October if effected between 1 and 15 October and in the month of November if effected from 16 to 31 October. However, as regards expenditure relating to public storage, all expenditure entered in the accounts in the month of October is taken into account in respect of financial year N + 1. Expenditure financed by the EAGF and resulting from public storage operations carried out in September should therefore be entered in the accounts not later than 15 October.

(10)

The exchange rates applicable must be laid down according to whether or not an operative event has been defined in the agricultural legislation. To avoid the application, by the Member States which do not form part of the euro zone, of different exchange rates in accounts of revenue received or aid paid to beneficiaries in a currency other than the euro, on the one hand, and in the declaration of expenditure drawn up by the paying agency, on the other, the Member States concerned should apply the same exchange rate in their declarations of expenditure under the EAGF as that used when collecting that revenue or making those payments to beneficiaries. Moreover, to simplify the administrative formalities as regards recoveries for more than one operation, a single exchange rate should apply when entering these recoveries into the accounts. This measure should, however, be limited to operations which took place before the date of application of this Regulation.

(11)

The Commission is to make payments at monthly or other regular intervals to the Member States on the basis of declarations of expenditure sent by the latter. It must, however, take into account the revenue received by the paying agencies on behalf of the Community budget. The conditions under which certain types of expenditure and revenue effected under the EAGF and the EAFRD are to be offset should therefore be laid down.

(12)

After approving the monthly payments, the Commission is to place at the disposal of the Member States the funds needed to cover expenditure to be financed by the EAGF and the EAFRD, in accordance with practical arrangements and conditions to be laid down on the basis of information communicated to the Commission by the Member States and the computer systems set up by the Commission.

(13)

If the Community budget has not been adopted by the beginning of the financial year, under the second subparagraph of Article 13(2) of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (3), payments may be made monthly per chapter to a maximum of one twelfth of the allotted appropriations in the chapter in question of the preceding financial year. To allocate the available appropriations fairly among the Member States, provision should be made for the monthly payments under the EAGF and the regular payments under the EAFRD to be made in this case as a percentage, laid down for each chapter, of the declarations of expenditure submitted by each Member State and for the balance not used in a given month to be reallocated in Commission decisions on subsequent monthly or regular payments.

(14)

Where, on the basis of the declarations of expenditure received from the Member States under the EAGF, the total amount of advance commitments which could be authorised under Article 150(3) of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 is more than half of all corresponding appropriations for the current financial year, the Commission is required to reduce those amounts. For the sake of sound management, that reduction must be shared among all the Member States proportionally, on the basis of the declarations of expenditure received from them. To allocate the available appropriations fairly among the Member States, provision should be made for monthly payments under the EAGF to be made in this case as a percentage, laid down for each chapter, of the declarations of expenditure submitted by each Member State and for the balance not used in a given month to be reallocated in Commission decisions on subsequent monthly payments.

(15)

Community agricultural legislation includes, for the EAGF, deadlines for payment of aids to beneficiaries which must be complied with by Member States. All payments effected after those deadlines, and for which the delay in payment is unjustified, must be regarded as irregular expenditure, and therefore cannot be the subject of reimbursement by the Commission. However, in order to modulate the financial impact in proportion to the delay incurred in payment, provision should be made for the Commission to graduate the reduction in the payments according to the length of delay recorded. A fixed margin must be laid down, moreover, so that reductions are not applied where the delays in payment result from legal disputes.

(16)

As part of the reform of the common agricultural policy and the introduction of the single payment scheme, Member State compliance with the payment deadlines is vital to the proper application of the rules on financial discipline. Specific rules should therefore be laid down to help avoid, wherever possible, any risk of the annual appropriations available in the Community budget being exceeded.

(17)

Under Articles 17 and 27 of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 the Commission may reduce or temporarily suspend payments to the Member States if they do not meet the deadlines laid down for the payments or do not notify data relating to expenditure or information provided for in that Regulation to verify the consistency of such data. The same applies, as regards the EAFRD, if the Member States do not notify the information required under Council Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 of 20 September 2005 on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) (4) and its implementing rules, including the mid-term evaluation report for the programmes. In this context, the implementing rules for these reductions and suspensions should be laid down for EAGF and EAFRD expenditure respectively.

(18)

Article 180 of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 provides that negative agricultural expenditure is to be replaced from 1 January 2007 by revenue assigned, according to origin, to either appropriations for the EAGF or the EAFRD. Under Article 32(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 the sums recovered by the paying agencies following the occurrence of irregularity or negligence are to be booked by them as assigned revenue. Some sums established following irregularities or reductions applied in the case of failure to comply with the environmental rules are comparable to the revenue relating to irregularities or negligence referred to in Article 32 of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 and should therefore be treated in a similar way to such revenue. Provision should therefore be made for the corresponding amounts to be entered in the accounts under the same terms as the assigned revenue coming directly from the irregularities or negligence referred to in that Article 32.

(19)

The expenditure co-financed by the Community budget and the national budgets as support for rural development under the EAFRD is based on programmes broken down by measure. It must therefore be monitored and entered into the accounts on this basis so that all operations can be identified by programme and by measure and so that it can be verified that there is an adequate match between the expenditure effected and the financial resources provided. In this context the elements to be taken into account by the paying agencies should be specified and it should be laid down, in particular, that the origin of public and Community funds must be clearly shown in the accounts in relation to the financing effected, and that the amounts to be recovered from beneficiaries and the amounts which have been recovered are identified and shown in relation to the original operations.

(20)

Where a payment or recovery operation is carried out in a national currency other than the euro, under rural development programmes financed by the EAFRD, the corresponding amounts must be converted into euro. Provision should therefore be made for a single exchange rate to be applied to all operations entered into the accounts in the course of a given month, to be used for the declarations of expenditure.

(21)

Forecasts of the amounts still to be funded by the EAFRD for a calendar year and estimates of funding requests for the following calendar year are required by the Commission for the purposes of its budgetary and financial management. The information in question must be sent to the Commission in sufficient time to enable it to meet its obligations, and in any event twice a year, not later than 31 January and 31 July each year.

(22)

To allow the Commission to validate the financing plan for each rural development programme, to provide for any changes to it and to carry out the necessary checks, certain information should be brought to its attention. To this end, each managing authority for the programmes must enter the required information into the EAFRD common computer system, to allow the Commission to determine, in particular, the maximum amount of the EAFRD contribution, its annual breakdown, a breakdown by priority and measure and the co-financing rates applicable for each priority. The terms on which the total amounts are to be registered in the common computer system should also be laid down.

(23)

The deadlines for drawing up the declarations of expenditure on operations under the EAFRD must be set by the Commission in accordance with Article 26(6) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005. In view of the specific characteristics of the accounting rules which apply to the EAFRD, the use of prefinancing and the financing of the measures by calendar year, provision should be made for this expenditure to be declared at intervals adapted to these specific conditions.

(24)

Exchanges of information and documents between the Commission and the Member States, and the provision and notification of information from the Member States to the Commission are generally carried out electronically or in digital form. In order to improve the way such exchanges of information under the EAGF and the EAFRD are dealt with and to extend their use, it is necessary to adapt the existing computer systems or set up new ones. Provision should be made for this to be done by the Commission and implemented after informing the Member States via the Committee on the Agricultural Funds.

(25)

The conditions under which information is processed by these computer systems and the form and content of documents which have to be communicated under Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 have to be adjusted frequently in line with changes to the applicable rules or management requirements. Uniform presentation of the documents to be sent in by the Member States is also necessary. To achieve these objectives and to simplify procedures and ensure that the computer systems concerned can be made operational immediately, the form and content of the documents should be laid down on the basis of models, which should be adapted and updated by the Commission after informing the Committee on the Agricultural Funds.

(26)

The paying agencies are responsible for the management and control of the legality of EAGF and EAFRD expenditure. The data on financial transactions must therefore be communicated or entered in the computer systems and updated under the responsibility of the paying agency, by the paying agency itself or the body to which that function has been delegated, where applicable via the accredited coordinating body.

(27)

Certain documents or procedures provided for in Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 and its implementing rules require the signature of an authorised person or the approval of a person at one or more of the stages of the procedure in question. In such cases, the computer systems set up for the communication of these documents must make it possible to identify each person unambiguously and provide reasonable assurance that the contents of the documents, including as regards the stages of the procedure, cannot be altered. This must apply, in particular, as regards the declarations of expenditure and the statement of assurance attached to the annual accounts referred to in Article 8(1)(c)(i) and (iii) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 and the documents communicated by electronic means under these procedures.

(28)

The rules applicable to the communication of electronic and digitised documents have been laid down at Community level, as regards the means of their transmission, the conditions under which they are valid for the Commission’s purposes and the conditions for keeping such documents and for their integrity and legibility. Insofar as the shared management of the Community budget under the EAGF and the EAFRD concerns documents drawn up or received by the Commission or the paying agencies and the procedures put in place for the financing of the common agricultural policy, provision should be made for the application of Community legislation to the communication of electronic and digitised documents carried out under this Regulation and the periods for which electronic and digitised documents are to be kept should be laid down.

(29)

The communication of information by electronic means may prove impossible in certain situations. To resolve possible malfunctions in a computer system or deal with the absence of a stable connection, the Member State must be able to send the documents in another form, under conditions which should be laid down.

(30)

Under Article 39(1)(d) and (e) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, the financial resources available in a Member State on 1 January 2007 following reductions in or cancellations of the amounts of payments which that Member State has made voluntarily, in accordance with Article 1 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1655/2004 of 22 September 2004 laying down rules for the transition from the optional modulation system established by Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1259/1999 to the mandatory modulation system established by Council Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 (5) or by way of a penalty, under Articles 3, 4 and 5 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1259/1999 establishing common rules for direct support schemes under the common agricultural policy (6), must be used by that Member State to finance rural development measures. If Member States do not use the financial resources within a certain period, the corresponding amounts are to be repaid to the EAGF budget. In order to lay down the terms of application of these measures, rules must be laid down for the accounting and management of the amounts concerned by the paying agencies, and for taking them into account in Commission payment decisions.

(31)

Under Article 39(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, the Member States belonging to the European Union before 1 May 2004 may, in justified cases and under certain conditions laid down in that point, be authorised by the Commission to continue payments for rural development programmes for the period 2000 to 2006 until 31 December 2006. To allow the application of this derogation, the procedure to be followed, the deadlines to be met by the Member States and the terms for implementing it should be laid down.

(32)

Commission Regulation (EC) No 296/96 of 16 February 1996 on data to be forwarded by the Member States and the monthly booking of expenditure financed under the Guarantee Section of the Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 2776/88 (7) and Commission Decision C/2004/1723 of 26 April 2004 on the form of documents to be transmitted by the Member States for entry in the accounts of expenditure financed by the EAGGF Guarantee Section (8) should therefore be repealed.

(33)

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee on the Agricultural Funds,

(a)

by the third working day of each week at the latest, information on total expenditure effected and assigned revenue received from the beginning of the month until the end of the preceding week;

(b)

by the third working day of the month at the latest, where the week runs over two months, information on total expenditure effected and assigned revenue received during the preceding month.

(a)

by the third working day of each month at the latest, information on total expenditure effected and assigned revenue received during the preceding month, on the basis of the model in Annex I, and any information explaining any substantial difference between the estimates drawn up in accordance with paragraph 2(a)(iii) of this Article and expenditure effected and assigned revenue received;

(b)

by the tenth day of each month at the latest, the declaration of expenditure referred to in Article 15(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 covering the total amount of expenditure effected and assigned revenue received during the preceding month, and the total amount of expenditure effected and assigned revenue received relating to public storage, on the basis of the model in Annex II to this Regulation. However, the communication on expenditure effected and assigned revenue received between 1 and 15 October shall be sent by the 25th day of the same month.

The declaration of expenditure shall include a breakdown of expenditure effected and assigned revenue by article of the nomenclature of the budget of the European Communities and, for the chapters relating to the audit of agricultural expenditure and to the assigned revenue, a further breakdown by item. However, where budgetary monitoring is subject to exceptional conditions, the Commission may request a more detailed breakdown;

(c)

by the 20th day of each month at the latest, a set of documents permitting the booking to the Community budget of expenditure effected and assigned revenue received by the paying agency during the preceding month, with the exception of the set of documents permitting the booking of expenditure effected and assigned revenue received between 1 and 15 October, which shall be submitted by 10 November;

(d)

by 20 May and 10 November of each year at the latest, in addition to the set of documents referred to in point (c), the amounts withheld and used in accordance with Article 5(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1259/1999 and Article 3(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1655/2004.

(a)

a statement (T104, in Annex V), drawn up by each paying agency, broken down according to the nomenclature of the budget of the European Communities and by type of expenditure and revenue, on the basis of a detailed nomenclature made available to the Member States covering:

(b)

a summary (T103, in Annex IV) of the data referred to in point (a), by Member State, for all that Member State’s paying agencies;

(c)

a statement of any difference (T101, in Annex III) between the expenditure declared in accordance with paragraph 1 (b) and expenditure declared in accordance with point (a) of this paragraph together, where appropriate, with the reasons for such difference;

(d)

the accounts evidencing expenditure and revenue relating to public storage, as referred to in Article 10(2) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 884/2006 (9), presented in the form of tables (e. FAUDIT tables) in accordance with Annex III to that Regulation;

(e)

tables (T106 to T109, in Annexes VI, VII, VIII and IX) supplementing those referred to in points (a) and (b) for the communications of 20 May and 10 November, as referred to in paragraph 1(d), showing the state of the accounts at the end of April and the end of the financial year, comprising:

—

for the tables referred to in paragraph 2(e), Member States shall use the same currency as that used in the financial year in which the amounts were withheld,

—

for the declarations of expenditure and of deductions referred to in Article 39(1)(a) and (b) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, Member States shall use their national currency.

(a)

expenditure which may be paid prior to the implementation of the provision permitting it to be wholly or partially borne by the EAGF may be declared only:

(b)

assigned revenue which the Member State owes the Commission shall be declared in respect of the month during which the time limit for payment of the corresponding amounts, laid down in Community legislation, expires;

(c)

corrections decided by the Commission under the clearance of accounts and the conformity clearance shall be deducted from or added to the monthly payments referred to, as appropriate, in Article 10(2) or Article 11(4) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 885/2006 (10) directly by the Commission. However, the Member States shall include the amounts corresponding to these corrections in the declaration drawn up for the month for which the corrections are made.

(a)

on the date of the payment of the sum due to the beneficiary, if the claim is less than the expenditure settled;

(b)

on the date of set-off, if the expenditure is less than or equal to the claim.

(a)

in the case of operations carried out in the course of September, the values and amounts shall be entered in the accounts by the paying agencies by 15 October at the latest,

(b)

in the case of the overall depreciation amounts referred to in Article 4(1)(d) of Regulation (EC) No 884/2006, the amounts shall be entered in the accounts on the date laid down in the decision providing for them.

(a)

where expenditure effected after the deadlines is equal to 4 % or less of the expenditure effected before the deadlines, no reduction shall be made;

(b)

above the threshold of 4 %, all further expenditure effected late shall be reduced in accordance with the following rules:

(a)

where the 4 % threshold referred to in paragraph 1(a) has not been used in full for payments made no later than 15 October of year N+1 and the remainder of the threshold exceeds 2 %, that remainder shall be reduced to 2 %;

(b)

in any case, payments made in the course of financial year N+2 and subsequent years shall be eligible for the Member State concerned only up to the level of its national ceiling as provided for in Annexes VIII or VIIIa to Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 or its annual financial envelope established in accordance with Article 143b(3) of that Regulation for the year preceding that of the financial year during which the payment is made, where applicable plus the amounts relating to the dairy premium and additional payments provided for in Articles 95 and 96 of that Regulation and the additional amount of aid provided for in Article 12 of that Regulation, less the percentage provided for in Article 10 of that Regulation and corrected by the adjustment provided for in Article 11 thereof, taking account of Article 12a of that Regulation and the amounts set in Article 4 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 188/2005 (13);

(c)

above the thresholds referred to in point (a), the expenditure concerned by this paragraph shall be reduced by 100 %.

—

on expenditure effected by 31 March,

—

on expenditure effected by 31 July.

(a)

sums payable to the Community budget, which have been collected as a consequence of penalties or sanctions in accordance with specific rules laid down in sectoral agricultural legislation;

(b)

amounts corresponding to reductions or exclusions of payments applied in accordance with the rules on cross-compliance laid down in Chapter 1 of Title II of Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003.

(a)

the amount of public expenditure and the amount of the Community contribution paid for each operation;

(b)

the amounts to be recovered from beneficiaries for irregularities or negligence found,

(c)

the amounts recovered, with an indication of the original operation.

(a)

by 30 April at the latest in the case of expenditure in the period 1 January to 31 March;

(b)

by 31 July at the latest in the case of expenditure in the period 1 April to 30 June;

(c)

by 10 November at the latest in the case of expenditure in the period 1 July to 15 October;

(d)

by 31 January at the latest in the case of expenditure in the period 16 October to 31 December.

(a)

the data required for financial transactions, in particular those relating to the monthly and annual accounts of the paying agencies, declarations of expenditure and revenue and transmission of the information and documents referred to in Articles 5, 11, 15 and 17 of this Regulation, Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 885/2006 and Articles 2, 10 and 11 of Regulation (EC) No 884/2006;

(b)

documents of common interest enabling the accounts to be monitored and the information and documents which the paying agency must make available to the Commission to be consulted;

(c)

the Community texts and Commission guidelines on the financing of the common agricultural policy by authorities accredited and designated under Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, and the guidelines on the harmonised application of the legislation concerned.

23.6.2006   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 171/35

(1)

Intervention measures to regulate agricultural markets under Article 3(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 are financed by the Community under the terms of the sectoral agricultural legislation. As regards intervention measures in the form of public storage, under Article 4 of Regulation (EEC) No 1883/78 the amount to be financed by the Community is determined by the annual accounts drawn up by the paying agencies. That Regulation also laid down the rules and conditions governing these accounts. Following the creation, by Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005, of the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF), which has replaced the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), Guarantee Section, the corresponding detailed implementing rules should be laid down.

(2)

Intervention measures in the form of public storage may be financed only if the related expenditure is incurred by the paying agencies designated by the Member States in accordance with Article 10 of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005. However, performance of tasks relating, in particular, to the administration and checking of intervention measures, with the exception of payment of aid, may be delegated in accordance with the second subparagraph of Article 6(1) of that Regulation. It should also be possible for several paying agencies to perform these tasks. It should also be laid down that the management of certain public storage measures may be entrusted to third parties, whether public or private bodies, under the responsibility of the paying agency. It is therefore appropriate to specify the scope of the responsibility of the paying agencies in this context, specify their obligations and determine under what conditions and according to which rules the management of certain public storage measures may be entrusted to third parties, whether public or private bodies. In this case, it should be stipulated that the bodies concerned must act under contract on the basis of general obligations and principles defined in this Regulation.

(3)

Expenditure on intervention measures in the form of public storage may vary substantially. It is therefore necessary to specify for each category of operation which expenditure is eligible for Community financing and, in particular, under what terms that expenditure can be covered, by laying down eligibility conditions and the methods for calculating eligible expenditure. In this connection, it should be specified when such expenditure is to be booked on the basis of the elements actually recorded by the paying agencies or on the basis of standard amounts established by the Commission.

(4)

So that Member States outside the euro zone can consolidate their expenditure and costs in their national currency and in euro in a harmonised fashion, the terms under which public storage operations are recorded in their accounts and the exchange rate applicable should be specified.

(5)

In view of the very different types of measures concerned and the absence of homogeneous operative events, for the purposes of determining the amount of Community financing for expenditure on public storage, a single operative event should be established, on the basis of the accounts drawn up and kept by the paying agencies to which the various items of expenditure and revenue recorded by the paying agencies are debited and credited.

(6)

Under Article 6 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 883/2006 of 21 June 2006 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 as regards the keeping of accounts by the paying agencies, declarations of expenditure and revenue and the conditions for reimbursing expenditure under the EAGF and the EAFRD (3), in order to have their public storage expenditure reimbursed, the paying agencies are required to include in their declarations of expenditure the values and amounts booked during the month following the month to which the public storage operations relate. In order to ensure that this procedure runs smoothly, it is necessary to specify how the information needed to calculate costs and expenditure is to be notified to the Commission.

(7)

Public intervention stock accounting must make it possible to determine the amount of Community financing and, at the same time, the situation of intervention stocks. To this end, the paying agencies should be required to keep separate stock records and financial accounts, containing the elements needed to monitor stocks and ensure the financial management of expenditure and revenue generated by public storage intervention measures.

(8)

The paying agencies are required to enter in the accounts elements relating to quantities, values and certain averages. However, certain operations and expenditure should not be entered in the accounts, because of certain circumstances, or should be booked in accordance with specific rules. In order to avoid different treatment and to protect the Community’s financial interests, such cases and circumstances should be specified, as should the arrangements for entering them in the accounts.

(9)

The date on which the different elements of expenditure and revenue resulting from public intervention storage measures are to be entered in the accounts depends on the type of operation and can be determined under the applicable sectoral agricultural legislation. In this context, a general rule is needed stipulating that the different elements are to be entered in the accounts on the date on which the physical operation resulting from the intervention measure takes place, and specifying the special cases to be taken into consideration.

(10)

By virtue of their general responsibility, the paying agencies have to check stocks of products in intervention storage regularly and periodically. In order to ensure that all paying agencies fulfil this obligation in a uniform fashion, the intervals at which the checks are to be carried out and general principles applicable to checks and to stock-taking operations should be laid down.

(11)

The valuation of public storage operations also depends on the type of operations and can be determined under the applicable sectoral agricultural legislation. A general rule should therefore be established providing that the value of the quantities bought in and sold is to be equal to the sum of the payments and receipts made or to be made for physical operations, together with specific rules and special cases to be taken into consideration.

(12)

The form and content of the documents to be transmitted for the purposes of intervention measures involving public storage, and the conditions and arrangements applicable to the transmission and keeping of these documents by Member States, should be established. To ensure consistency with the rules laid down in the other areas affected by the financing of the common agricultural policy, the notifications and exchanges of information provided for in this Regulation should take place in accordance with Article 18 of Regulation (EC) No 883/2006.

(13)

The measures in this Regulation replace those laid down in Commission Regulation (EEC) No 411/88 of 12 February 1988 on the method and the rate of interest to be used for calculating the costs of financing intervention measures comprising buying-in, storage and disposal (4), Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1643/89 of 12 June 1989 defining the standard amounts to be used for financing material operations arising from the public storage of agricultural products (5) and Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2734/89 of 8 September 1989 on the factors to be taken into consideration for determining expenditure pursuant to Article 37 (2) of Regulation (EEC) No 822/87 to be financed by the EAGGF Guarantee Section (6), Council Regulation (EEC) No 3492/90 of 27 November 1990 laying down the factors to be taken into consideration in the annual accounts for the financing of intervention measures in the form of public storage by the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, Guarantee Section (7), Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3597/90 of 12 December 1990 on the accounting rules for intervention measures involving the buying-in, storage and sale of agricultural products by intervention agencies (8) and Commission Regulation (EEC) No 147/91 of 22 January 1991 defining and fixing the tolerances for quantity losses of agricultural products in public intervention storage (9), and Commission Regulation (EC) No 2148/96 of 8 November 1996 laying down rules for evaluating and monitoring public intervention stocks of agricultural products (10).

(14)

Regulations (EEC) No 411/88, (EEC) No 1643/89, (EEC) No 2734/89, (EEC) No 3492/90, (EEC) No 3597/90, (EEC) No 147/91 and (EC) No 2148/96 should therefore be repealed.

(15)

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee on the Agricultural Funds,

(a)

entrust the management of certain public storage measures to natural or legal persons storing bought-in agricultural products, hereinafter called ‘storers’. In such cases, such management shall be carried out under storage contracts on the basis of the obligations and general principles set out in Annex II;

(b)

mandate natural or legal persons to carry out certain specific tasks laid down by the sectoral legislation.

(a)

to keep stock accounts and financial accounts for each product covered by an intervention measure involving public storage, based on the operations they carry out from 1 October of one year to 30 September of the following year, this period hereinafter being referred to as an ‘accounting year’;

(b)

to keep an up-to-date list of the storers with whom they have concluded public storage contracts. This list shall contain references allowing the exact identification of all storage points, their capacity, the number of warehouses, cold stores and silos, and drawings and diagrams thereof;

(c)

to make available to the Commission the standard contracts used for public storage, the rules laid down for the taking over of products, their storage and removal from the storehouses of the storers, and the rules applicable to the liability of storers;

(d)

to keep centralised, computerised stock accounts of all stocks, covering all storage places, all products and all the quantities and qualities of the different products, specifying in each case the weight (net and gross, where applicable) or the volume;

(e)

to perform all operations relating to the storage, conservation, transport or transfer of intervention products in accordance with Community and national legislation, without prejudice to the responsibility of the purchasers, the other paying agencies involved in an operation and any other persons acting on instruction in this connection;

(f)

to conduct checks on places where intervention stocks are held, throughout the year. These checks shall be carried out at irregular intervals and without prior warning. However, provided that the purpose of the control is not jeopardised, advance notice may be given, strictly limited to the minimum time period necessary. Such notice shall not exceed 24 hours, except in duly justified cases;

(g)

to conduct an annual stocktaking in accordance with Article 8.

(a)

that products covered by Community intervention measures are properly conserved. They shall check the quality of stored products at least once a year;

(b)

the integrity of intervention stocks.

(a)

of cases where extending the storage period of a product is likely to result in its deterioration;

(b)

of quantitative losses or deterioration of the product due to natural disasters.

(a)

as regards the situations referred to in point (a) of the first subparagraph, in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 25(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1784/2003 (12) or, as the case may be, in accordance with the procedure provided for in the corresponding Article of other regulations on the common organisation of agricultural markets;

(b)

as regards the situations referred to in point (b) of the first subparagraph, in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 41(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005.

(a)

at the Commission’s request, the documents and information referred to in paragraph 7 and the additional national administrative provisions adopted for the application and management of intervention measures;

(b)

at the intervals provided for in Article 4(1) of Regulation (EC) No 883/2006, the information on public storage, on the basis of the models in Annex III to this Regulation.

(a)

the financing costs for funds mobilised by the Member States to buy in products, in accordance with the calculation methods set out in Annex IV;

(b)

expenditure on physical operations relating to buying-in, sale or other forms of transfer of products (entry, storage and removal of products under public storage schemes), as referred to in Annex V, based on uniform standard amounts for the Community, calculated in accordance with the methods set out in Annex VI;

(c)

expenditure on physical operations not necessarily connected with buying-in, sale or other forms of transfer of products, on the basis of standard amounts or non-standard amounts in accordance with the provisions laid down by the Commission under the sectoral agricultural legislation relating to the products concerned and Annex VII;

(d)

depreciation of stored products, in accordance with the calculation methods set out in Annex VIII;

(e)

the differences (gains and losses) between the accounting value and the price of disposal of the products, or differences resulting from other factors.

(a)

the quantities of products recorded on entry into and removal from storage, with or without physical movement;

(b)

the quantities used for free distribution to the most deprived persons under Council Regulation (EEC) No 3730/87 (14), and accounted for under Article 5 of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3149/92 (15), distinguishing those which are the subject of a transfer to another Member State;

(c)

quantities taken as samples, distinguishing samples taken by purchasers;

(d)

the quantities which, after checking by visual examination in the context of the annual stock-taking or during the inspection after taking into intervention, may no longer be repackaged and are the subject of direct sales;

(e)

quantities missing, for identifiable or unidentifiable reasons, including those corresponding to the legal tolerance limits;

(f)

quantities which have deteriorated;

(g)

surplus quantities;

(h)

missing quantities exceeding the tolerance limits;

(i)

quantities which have entered into storage and been found not to meet the requirements and for which taking-over has therefore been refused;

(j)

net quantities in storage at the end of each month or accounting year, which are carried forward to the next month or accounting year.

(a)

the value of the quantities referred to in paragraph 1(a) of this Article, showing separately the value of the quantities bought in and of the quantities sold;

(b)

the book value of the quantities used or taken into account under the free distribution arrangements referred to in paragraph 1(b) of this Article;

(c)

the financing costs referred to in Article 4(1)(a);

(d)

expenditure on physical operations as referred to in Article 4(1)(b) and (c);

(e)

amounts resulting from depreciation as referred to in Article 4(1)(d);

(f)

the amounts collected or recovered from sellers, purchasers and storers other than those referred to in Article 11(2);

(g)

the amount from direct sales carried out after the annual stock-taking or following checks after products are taken into intervention storage;

(h)

losses and gains on removals of products, taking account of depreciation as referred to in point (e) of this paragraph;

(i)

other debits and credits, in particular those corresponding to the quantities referred to in paragraph 1(c) to (g) of this Article;

(j)

the average book value, expressed per tonne or per hectolitre, as the case may be.

(a)

the removal costs relating to quantities for which quantitative losses or deterioration have been recorded, in accordance with the rules laid down in Annexes X and XII, shall be entered in the accounts only for the quantities actually sold and removed from storage;

(b)

quantities recorded as missing on transfer between Member States shall not be deemed to have entered storage in the Member State of destination and shall not be covered by standard entry costs;

(c)

the standard entry and removal costs fixed for transport and transfer shall be entered in the accounts if those costs are not considered, under the Community rules, to be an integral part of the transport costs;

(d)

unless specific Community rules provide otherwise, amounts accruing from sales of products which have deteriorated and any other amounts received in this context shall not be entered in the EAGF account records;

(e)

any surplus quantities recorded shall be entered in the accounts as a negative amount, in the missing quantities in the stock situation and movements. These quantities shall be included when determining the quantities exceeding the tolerance limit;

(f)

samples other than those taken by purchasers shall be entered in the accounts in accordance with point 2(a) of Annex XII.

(a)

the date on which the storage contract referred to in Article 9(2) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1262/2001 (16) takes effect, in the case of white sugar and raw sugar, for quantities taken over under a storage contract between the party making the offer and the paying agency signed prior to transfer of the stocks;

(b)

the date of receipt, in the case of amounts received or recovered, as referred to in Article 5(2)(f) and (g);

(c)

the date of actual payment of costs relating to physical operations, where such costs are not covered by standard amounts.

(a)

the date of taking-over of products by the paying agency, in accordance with the regulation on the common organisation of the market in the product concerned, for quantities entering public storage without any change in the place of storage;

(b)

the date of the finding as to the facts in the case of missing or deteriorated and surplus quantities;

(c)

the date of actual removal from storage, in the case of direct sales of products remaining in storage which can no longer be repackaged after visual examination in the context of the annual stock-taking or during the inspection after taking into intervention,

(d)

at the end of the accounting year, for any losses exceeding the tolerance limit.

(a)

Annex IX, for distillation products (mixed alcohol),

(b)

Annex X, for missing quantities,

(c)

Annex XII, for deteriorated or destroyed products,

(d)

Annex XIII, for products which have entered storage but taking-over of which has been refused.

(a)

the last exchange rate established by the European Central Bank before the 2007 accounting year for the conversion into national currency of:

(b)

the last exchange rate established by the European Central Bank before the first day of each quarter of the 2007 accounting year, starting on 1 October 2006 for the conversion into national currency of:

(c)

the last exchange rate established by the European Central Bank before the 2008 accounting year for the conversion into euro of the net quantities which are to be carried forward from the 2007 accounting year to the 2008 accounting year, minus the second depreciation at the end of the 2007 accounting year.