EAGGF Guarantee section, expenditure control: Member States' action programmes

The Commission does not accept the amendment which was adopted at the 13 April Plenary session, which relates to the changing of the legal basis of the proposed Regulation from Article 37 to Article 280 of the Treaty. The Commission considers that the amendment to Regulation 723/97/EC is only concerned with better functioning of the control system for agricultural expenditure and that, therefore, the legal basis for its proposal should be Article 37 of the Treaty. The second amendment adopted by the Parliament relating to the new proposed Article 5a aimed: - to make this Article more clear in the sense that the co-financing concerns additional cost incurred by the Member State and - to provide that additional cost incurred by the Commission to administer the scheme shall also be covered by this co-financing. The Commission accepts the first part of the second amendment but cannot accept the second part as this confuses budgetary operational costs and administrative costs. �