Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2023)582 - Amendment of Directive 2014/62/EU as regards certain reporting requirements - Main contents
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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2023)582 - Amendment of Directive 2014/62/EU as regards certain reporting requirements. |
|---|---|
| source | COM(2023)582  |
| date | 17-10-2023 |
•Reasons for and objectives of the proposal
In its Communication on ‘Long-term competitiveness of the EU: looking beyond 2030’ ( 1 ), the Commission has stressed the importance of a regulatory system that ensures that objectives are reached at minimum costs. It has committed therefore to a fresh push to rationalise and simplify reporting requirements, with the ultimate aim to reduce such burdens by 25%, without undermining the related policy objectives.
Reporting requirements play a key role in ensuring correct enforcement and proper monitoring of legislation. Their costs are overall largely offset by the benefit they bring, in particular in monitoring and ensuring compliance with key policy measures. Reporting requirements can however also impose disproportionate burdens on stakeholders, particularly affecting SMEs and micro-companies, also given organisational and technological developments that call for original reporting requirements to be adjusted. Their cumulation over time can result in redundant, duplicating or obsolete obligations, inefficient frequency and timing, or inadequate methods of collection.
Streamlining reporting obligations and reducing administrative burdens is therefore a priority. In this context, the present proposal aims to simplify an initiative included in headline ambition “an Economy that works for people” in the policy area of Economic and Monetary Union.
The proposal will rationalise reporting obligations by removing reports which are not necessary any longer.
The reporting requirements concern public authorities. This proposal would abolish the obligation for Member States’ competent authorities to transmit statistical data to the Commission on the number of counterfeiting offences and on the number of persons prosecuted and convicted of the counterfeiting offences, as laid down in Article 11 of Directive 2014/62/EU 2 . While Member States’ authorities have difficulties gathering and transmitting reliable data in order to comply with this specific provision, they do not play a pivotal role in the effective implementation of this specific legal act.
•Consistency with existing policy provisions in the policy area
The proposal is part of a first package of measures to rationalise reporting requirements. This is a step in a process looking comprehensively at existing reporting requirements, with a view to assess their continued relevance and to make them more efficient.
The rationalisation introduced by these measures will not affect the achievement of objectives in the policy area, for the following reasons:
The primary objective of Directive 2014/62/EU is to protect the euro and other currencies against counterfeiting by criminal law.
It establishes minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions in the area of counterfeiting of the euro and other currencies as well as common provisions to strengthen the fight against those offences and to improve investigation of them and to ensure better cooperation against counterfeiting.
The main elements of the Directive include the criminalisation of the ‘production’ and ‘distribution’ of counterfeit currencies as well as ‘preparatory offences’ like the production of security features, the provisions on penalties, and the principle of territoriality and the extraterritorial jurisdiction. It also includes a provision on the use of certain investigative tools, and a provision ensuring that the National Analysis Centres (NACs) and the Coin National Analysis Centres (CNACs) can analyse euro counterfeits during on-going judicial proceedings. The effective transposition of these elements into national legislations is essential to achieve the objectives of the Directive.
In addition, the Directive requires Member States to transmit to the Commission relevant statistical data relating to the number of offences concerning counterfeit notes and coins and the number of persons prosecuted and sentenced.
This data would in principle help to gain a more complete picture of the problem of counterfeiting at Union level and thereby contribute to formulating a more effective response.
However, experience has shown that the statistical data on Euro-counterfeiting criminal proceedings produced by the Member States according to this provision are not comparable and often scattered, incomplete and inaccurate. Thus, in practice, the obligation does not contribute effectively to monitoring and evaluating whether the Directive has reached its objective.
Not fulfilling statistical data reporting obligations cannot generally justify liberating Member States from those obligations. It should, on the contrary, lead to efforts to comply, including by testing different approaches and/or by facilitating common reporting standards and formats by the Commission as a basis for reporting obligations upon Member States.
However, specifically, with regard to Euro-counterfeiting, there are already reporting obligations on the number of confiscated counterfeit coins and banknotes in place. National authorities in EU countries must send counterfeit notes and coins to their national analysis centres for analysis and identification. Banks and other credit institutions must withdraw from circulation all euro notes and coins which they suspect to be counterfeit and hand them over to the relevant national authorities.
Thus, the size and trends of the phenomenon as such is well documented and known to the competent national authorities 3 . For this specific area of crime, the obligation to report statistical data on criminal proceedings therefore is not essential to ensure that the objectives of the Directive are achieved and monitored.
•Consistency with other Union policies
Under the Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT), the Commission ensures that its legislation if fit for purpose, targeted to the needs of stakeholders and minimizes burdens while achieving its objectives. This proposal is therefore part of the REFIT programme, reducing the complexity of reporting burdens arising from the EU legal environment.
While certain reporting requirements are essential, they need to be as efficient as possible, avoiding overlaps, removing unnecessary burdens and using as much as possible digital and interoperable solutions.
The current proposal rationalises reporting requirements thus making the achievement of the objectives of legislation more efficient and less burdensome for public authorities.
•Legal basis
The legal basis for this proposal is Article 83(1) on judicial cooperation on criminal matters, which is compatible with the Directive 2014/62/EU.
•Subsidiarity (for non-exclusive competence)
The reporting requirements concerned are imposed by EU law. Their rationalisation is therefore best done at EU level to ensure legal certainty and consistency of reporting. This will ensure a level playing field for public administrations across the EU, which will be benefiting from the rationalisation of reporting requirements arising from these measures.
•Proportionality
The rationalisation of reporting requirements simplifies the legal framework by introducing minimum changes to existing requirements that do not affect the substance of the wider policy objective. The proposal is therefore limited to those changes that are necessary to ensure efficient reporting without changing any of the substantial elements of the legislation concerned.
•Choice of the instrument
Considering that the amendments only concern the deletion of an obligation for the Member States to provide data, which does not require any transposition by the Member States, a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council adopted in compliance with the procedure set out in Article 83(1) TFEU is deemed to be the most appropriate legal instrument.
•Ex-post evaluations/fitness checks of existing legislation
•Stakeholder consultations
•Collection and use of expertise
This proposal has been identified following a process of internal scrutiny of existing reporting obligations and based on the experience from implementation of the related legislation. Since this is a step in the process of continuous assessment of reporting requirements arising from EU legislation, the scrutiny of such burdens and of their impact on stakeholders will continue.
•Impact assessment
The proposal concerns limited and targeted changes of legislation in view of rationalising reporting requirements. It is based on experience from implementing legislation. The changes do not have significant impacts on the policy, but ensure a more efficient and effective implementation. Its targeted nature and the lack of relevant policy options make an impact assessment not necessary.
•Regulatory fitness and simplification
This is a REFIT proposal, aiming to simplify legislation and cut burdens for stakeholders.
It will reduce the administrative burden on competent authorities by eliminating a redundant statistical reporting requirement.
•Fundamental rights