Opinion No 7/2014 of the COURT OF AUDITORS
The Court takes note of the Commission's proposal amending Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1150/2000 to allow deferred payments of VAT and GNI balances and adjustments in case of exceptional circumstances. While this proposed amendment does not tackle the issue of Member States' budgetary uncertainty which remains a risk in the current system of own resources, the Court acknowledges that the VAT and GNI balances and adjustments may result in exceptionally large amounts, as occurred in 2014.
It draws attention, however, to the fact that this provision may increase the complexity of the system of own resources and the Member States' budgetary uncertainty. The Court therefore considers that this proposal should be completed to address the observations raised by the Court in the context of the entry into force of the new Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 609/2014.The amended Regulation should thus set a common pre-determined schedule for these deferred payments in order to limit uncertainty in respect of the dates, the number of instalments and the amounts.