LegalizeFinancial Regulation applicable to Europol
THE MANAGEMENT BOARD,
Having regard to the Council Decision 2009/371/JHA of 6 April 2009 establishing the European Police Office (Europol) with a view to reinforcing the fight against serious crime (8706/3/08) (1), in particular Articles 37(3)(9)(e) and Article 44 thereof,
Having regard to the Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No. 2343/2002 (2) of 23 December 2002 on the framework Financial Regulation for the bodies referred to in Article 185 of the Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 (3) on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities, as amended by the Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No. 652/2008 (4),
Whereas:
(1) Following the amendment of the framework Financial Regulation by the Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 652/2008 of 9 July 2008, it is necessary to adapt Europol’s financial rules in order to align its provisions with the amended framework Financial Regulation.
(2) Europol has legal personality and has full responsibility to draw up and to implement its own budget.
(3) For the purpose of establishing and implementing the budget of Europol, the four fundamental principles of budgetary law (unity, universality, specification, annuality) and the principles of budgetary accuracy, equilibrium, unit of account, sound financial management and transparency must be reasserted.
(4) The principle of sound financial management should be defined by reference to the principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, and compliance with those principles checked by means performance indicators established per activity and measurable in such a way that results can be assessed.
(5) For the sake of compliance with the principles of transparency and sound financial management, Europol should have transparent procurement procedures, effective internal controls; a system of presentation of the accounts which is separate from its other activities and external audit.
(6) Effective control systems must be established to protect the financial interest of the European Community.
(7) Like the Institutions of the Community, Europol is not allowed to raise loans, in accordance with Article 14 of the general Financial Regulation.
(8) It is necessary to define the rules on drawing up and implementing Europol’s budget, as well as the rules governing the presentation and the auditing of the accounts.
(9) It is also necessary to define the powers and responsibilities of the Management Board of Europol, the Authorising Officers, the Accounting Officer, the Imprest Administrator, the Commission and Europol Internal Auditors. The Authorising Officers, including the Authorising Officer, the Authorising Officers by delegation and by sub-delegation are fully responsible for all the revenue and expenditure operations executed under their authority and must be held accountable for their action, including where necessary through disciplinary proceedings.
(10) The timetable establishing Europol’s budget, presenting the accounts and granting discharge should be aligned to the equivalent provisions of the general Financial Regulation.
(11) Since Europol is financed by an annual subsidy charged to the Community budget, Europol must strictly observe the same requirements as the Institutions of the Community in the award of public contracts and grants, insofar as such contracts and grants are authorized by the instruments setting it up; in this respect a reference to the relevant provisions of the general Regulation is sufficient.
(12) The Financial Regulation must reflect the specific requirements of Europol as a police cooperation body. It should take full account of the sensitive operations carried out by Europol, in particular operational, strategic and classified information.
(13) The European Commission has consented to this Regulation including the departure from the framework Financial Regulation,
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:
TITLE I
SUBJECT MATTER
Article 1
This Regulation lays down the main principles and rules governing the establishment and implementation of the budget of the European Police Office.
Article 2
For the purposes of this Regulation:
‘Europol Decision’ shall mean the Council Decision 2009/371/JHA of 6 April 2009 … establishing a European Police Office;
‘Europol’ shall mean the European Police Office as set up by the Europol Decision establishing Europol as a body of the European Union;
‘Management Board’ shall mean the organ as referred to in Article 36 and Article 37 of the Europol Decision;
‘Director’ shall mean the person referred to in Article 36 and Article 38 of the Europol Decision;
‘Staff’ shall mean the Director as well as the staff referred to in Article 39 of the Europol Decision;
‘Budget’ shall mean the budget of Europol as referred to in Article 42 of the Europol Decision;
‘Budgetary authority’ shall mean the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union;
‘General Financial Regulation’ shall mean the Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities;
‘Framework Financial Regulation’ shall mean the Commission Regulation (EC, Eurotom) No 2343/2002 of the 23 December 2002 on the framework Financial Regulation for the bodies referred to in Article 185 of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities, as revised by Commission Regulation N 652/2008;
‘Implementing rules to the general Financial Regulation’ shall mean the detailed rules for the implementation 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 as laid down in Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2342/2002 of 23 December 2002;
‘Europol Financial Implementing Rules’ shall mean the implementing rules to this Financial Regulation;
‘Europol Financial Rules’ shall mean this Financial Regulation and the Europol Financial Implementing Rules;
‘Staff Regulations’ shall mean regulations and rules applicable to officials and other servants of the European Communities;
TITLE II
BUDGETARY PRINCIPLES
Article 3
The establishment and implementation of the budget shall comply with the principles of unity and budget accuracy, annuality, equilibrium, unit of account, universality, specification and sound financial management, which requires effective and efficient internal control and transparency as provided for in this Regulation.
CHAPTER 1
Principles of unity and of budget accuracy
Article 4
The budget is the instrument which, for each financial year, forecasts and authorises the revenue and expenditure considered necessary for Europol.
Article 5
The budget shall comprise:
(a) own revenue consisting of all fees and charges which Europol is authorised to collect by virtue of the tasks entrusted to it, and any other revenue;
(b) revenue made up of any financial contributions of the host Member State;
(c) a subsidy granted by the European Communities;
(d) revenue assigned to specific items of expenditure in accordance with Article 19(1);
(e) the expenditure of Europol, including administrative expenditure.
Article 6
No revenue shall be collected and no expenditure effected unless booked to a line in the budget.
An appropriation must not be entered in the budget if it is not for an item of expenditure considered necessary.
No expenditure may be committed or authorised in excess of the appropriations authorised by the budget.
CHAPTER 2
Principle of annuality
Article 7
The appropriations entered in the budget shall be authorised for one financial year, which shall run from 1 January to 31 December.
Article 8
The budget shall contain non-differentiated appropriations and, where justified by operational needs, differentiated appropriations. The latter shall consist of commitment appropriations and payment appropriations.
Commitment appropriations shall cover the total cost of the legal commitments entered into during the current financial year.
Payment appropriations shall cover payments made to honour the legal commitments entered into in the current financial year and/or earlier financial years.
Administrative appropriations shall be non-differentiated. Administrative expenditure arising from contracts covering periods that extend beyond the financial year, either in accordance with local practice or relating to the supply of equipment, shall be charged to the budget of the financial year in which it is effected.
Article 9
The revenue of Europol referred to in Article 5 shall be entered in the accounts for the financial year on the basis of the amounts collected during the financial year.
The revenue of Europol shall give rise to an equivalent amount of payment appropriations.
The appropriations authorised in the budget for a given year may be used solely to cover expenditure committed and paid in that financial year, and to cover amounts due against commitments from preceding financial years.
Commitments shall be entered in the accounts on the basis of the legal commitments entered into up to 31 December.
Payments shall be entered in the accounts for a financial year on the basis of the payments effected by the accounting officer by 31 December of that year at the latest.
Article 10
Appropriations which have not been used at the end of the financial year for which they were entered shall be cancelled.
However, they may, by decision of the Management Board taken not later than 15 February, be carried over to the next financial year only, in accordance with paragraphs 2 to 7.
Appropriations relating to staff expenditure may not be carried over.
Commitment appropriations and non-differentiated appropriations not yet committed at the close of the financial year may be carried over in respect of amounts corresponding to commitment appropriations for which most of the preparatory stages of the commitment procedure, to be defined in the Europol Financial Implementing Rules, have been completed by 31 December; these amounts may then be committed up to 31 March of the following year.
Payment appropriations may be carried over in respect of amounts needed to cover existing commitments or commitments linked to commitment appropriations carried over, when the appropriations provided for the relevant lines in the budget for the following financial year do not cover requirements. Europol shall first use the appropriations authorised for the current financial year and shall not use the appropriations carried over until the former are exhausted.
Non-differentiated appropriations corresponding to obligations duly contracted at the close of the financial year shall be carried over automatically to the following financial year only.
Appropriations carried over which have not been committed by 31 March of year n+1 shall be automatically cancelled. Appropriations carried over in this way shall be identified in the accounts.
The appropriations available at 31 December arising from the assigned revenue referred to in Article 19 shall be carried over automatically. The appropriations available corresponding to assigned revenue carried over must be used first.
By 1 June of the year n+1 at the latest, Europol shall inform the Commission about the implementation of the assigned revenue carried over.
Article 11
Where amounts are decommitted, as a result of total or partial non-implementation of the actions for which they were earmarked, in any financial year after that in which the appropriations were committed, the appropriations concerned shall be cancelled.
Article 12
The appropriations entered in the budget may be committed with effect from 1 January, once the budget has become definitive.
Article 13
As from 15 November of each year, routine administrative expenditure may be committed in advance against the appropriations provided for the following financial year. Such commitments may not, however, exceed one quarter of the appropriations decided by the Management Board on the corresponding budget line for the current financial year. They may not apply to new expenditure of a kind not yet approved in principle in the last budget duly adopted.
Expenditure which must be paid in advance, for example rents, may give rise to payments from 1 December onwards to be charged to the appropriations for the following financial year. In this case, the limit referred to in paragraph 1 shall not apply.
Article 14
If the budget has not been finally adopted at the beginning of the financial year, the following rules shall apply to commitment and payment of expenditure which it has been possible to book to a specific line in the budget as part of implementation of the last budget duly adopted.
Commitments may be made per chapter up to a maximum of one quarter of the total appropriations authorised in the chapter in question for the previous financial year, plus one twelfth for each month which has elapsed. Payments may be made monthly per chapter up to a maximum of one twelfth of the appropriations authorised in the chapter in question for the previous financial year. The limit of the appropriations provided for in the statement of estimates of revenue and expenditure may not be exceeded.
At the request of the Director, if the continuity of action by Europol and management needs so require, the Management Board may simultaneously authorise two or more provisional twelfths for both commitments and payments over and above those automatically made available by the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2. The additional twelfths shall be authorised in full and shall not be divisible.
CHAPTER 3
Principle of equilibrium
Article 15
The budget revenue and payment appropriations must be in balance.
Commitment appropriations may not exceed the amount of the Community subsidy, plus own revenue and any other revenue referred to in Article 5.
Europol may not raise loans.
Community funds paid to Europol shall constitute for its budget a balancing subsidy which shall count as pre-financing within the meaning of Article 81(1)(b)(i) of the general Financial Regulation.
Europol shall implement rigorous cash management, taking due account of assigned revenue in order to ensure that its cash balances are limited to duly justified requirements. With its payment requests, Europol shall submit detailed and updated forecasts on its real cash requirements throughout the year, including information on assigned revenue.
Article 16
If the balance of the outturn account within the meaning of Article 81 is positive, it shall be repaid to the Commission up to the amount of the Community subsidy paid during the year. The part of the balance exceeding the amount of the Community subsidy paid during the year shall be entered in the budget for the following financial year as revenue.
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