L 228)8 Official Journal of the European Communities 24.8.2001 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 1687/2001 of 21 August 2001 amending Regulation (Euratom, ECSC, EC) No 3418/93 laying down detailed rules for the imple- mentation of certain provisions of the Financial Regulation of 21 December 1977 THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Financial Regulation of 21 December 1977 applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (!), as last amended by Council Regulation (EC) No 762/2001 (3, and in particular Article 139 thereof, After consulting the European Parliament and the Council, Having regard to the opinions of the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the Ombudsman, Whereas: (1) Commission Regulation (Euratom, ECSC, EC) No 3418/ 93 of 9 December 1993 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of certain provisions of the Financial Regulation of 21 December 1977 (?), as last amended by Decision 2000/716/EC (*), must be amended as a result of the amendments made to the Financial Regulation. (2)  Provisions on the evaluation of projects, programmes and operations must be introduced to comply with the principles of sound financial management. (3)  All references to the ecu were replaced by references to the euro at the rate of one euro to one ecu from 1 January 1999, in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 1103/97 of 17 June 1997 on certain provisions relating to the introduction of the euro (°), as amended by Regulation (EC) No 2595/2000 (). All references to the ecu in Regulation (Euratom, ECSC, EC) No 3418/93 should be read as references to the euro. (4)  The rate of the euro against each of the currencies which the institutions use for the implementation of the budget should be determined by the Commission on the basis of the reference exchange rates published by the Euro- pean Central Bank. (5) A new reference rate of interest, ie. the rate applied by the European Central Bank to its refinancing operations, must be set now that the European Monetary Coopera- tion Fund (EMCF) no longer exists. (6)  The notion of confusion of interests needs to be defined. (7)  The transparency of subcontracted operations must be guaranteed. ] L 356, 31.12.1977, p. 1. ] L 111, 20.4.2001, p. 1. ] L 315, 16.12.1993, p. 1. ] L 290, 17.11.2000, p. 52. ] L 162, 19.6.1997, p. 1. ] L 300, 29.11.2000, p. 1. ®) (10) (12) (13) (14) (16) A new provision on the validation of payments by the accounting officer should be introduced in view of the development of integrated computer systems. The procedure for setting up imprest accounts and appointing imprest administrators needs to be adapted to match the requirements and urgency that warrant recourse to the procedure. In this area the authorising officer should be given the initiating role and the accounting officer the decision-making role. The principles governing the performance of internal auditing need to be set out. Following amendment of Article 36 of the Financial Regulation to give a stronger guarantee that legal commitments correspond to accounting commitments, a number of provisions in Title VII need to be adjusted. A provision on the establishment of a third party ledger should be introduced to increase the security of payments by transfer. The provisions relating to contracts must be grouped together and rationalised to bring them into line with the Plurilateral Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO) and the Council directives. In the interests of simplification and harmonisation of the procedures for the award of contracts and of empowerment of authorising officers, the threshold above which the ACPC's responsibility comes into play should be raised for the Commission, given the volume of its contracts, and to a lesser extent for the other institutions. It is proposed that the referral threshold for the Commission's ACPC be raised in two stages, with an intermediate evaluation, so that the impact of the rise can be gauged. The accounts must record changes in value by writing down the value of assets where appropriate and record the depreciation of assets by constituting corresponding provisions. In accordance with the principle of prudence, the accounting officer must also enter provi- sions for liabilities and charges. The Commission no longer receives advances in respect of the activities it conducts on behalf of third parties in the field of research and technological development and has dissolved the ACPC-JRC.