Regulation 2022/615 - Amendment of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 609/2014 in order to enhance predictability for Member States and to clarify procedures for dispute resolution when making available the traditional, VAT and GNI based own resources - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 115/51

While Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 609/2014 (2) has provided a solid and stable anchor for the financing mechanics of the Union, the provisions on the making available of own resources need to be improved to enhance its predictability for Member States and to clarify procedures for dispute resolution.

Currently, only Member States manage own resources accounts opened in the name of the Commission. A reduction in the number of bank accounts used for collection of own resources would be more efficient and allow for a common approach to cash management. In order to modernise the management of own resources accounts, the Commission should be able to establish a centralised own resources account. It should be possible for Member States to choose whether to use that centralised own resources account or an account opened in the name of the Commission with their treasury or national central bank. In order to enable Member States to make an informed choice, the Commission should produce a detailed cost-benefit analysis of the use of the centralised own resources account.

Currently, Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 609/2014 does not allow Member States to make advance payments. However, in the past some Member States have paid their national contributions in advance following agreement by the Commission. In the interest of legal certainty, that Regulation should provide that Member States have the possibility to make advance payments on a case-by-case basis, provided they inform the Commission in advance. For reasons of fairness, where a Member State avails itself of that possibility, the other Member States should not bear any costs related to the advanced payment, such as negative interest.

The date of payment by the Member States of the adjustments to the VAT and GNI-based own resources of previous financial years should be moved to March of the following year to enhance predictability for the national budgetary procedures. The date of payment by the Member States of adjustments should also apply to amounts for which information has been provided by the Commission before the entry into force of this Regulation.

To provide a stable budget that is necessary to finance the policy objectives of the Union, the procedure for calculating interest should ensure in particular that own resources are made available in a timely manner and in full.

The current threshold below which interest amounts are waived needs to be adapted. It is therefore necessary to increase the amount for which the recovery of interest is waived to improve the cost-effectiveness of the recovery procedures.

Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 609/2014 limits the increase in interest above the base rate to 16 percentage points. However, this ‘capping’ at 16 percentage points only applies to cases that became known after the entry into force of Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2016/804 (3). Consequently, cases already known before the entry into force of...