WRITTEN QUESTION E-1564/99 by Lucio Manisco (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Commission recovery orders.
C 203 E/8 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 18. 7. 2000 (2000/C 203 E/008) WRITTEN QUESTION E-1564/99 by Lucio Manisco (GUE/NGL) to the Commission (1 September 1999) Subject: Commission recovery orders For years the Commission has been requesting reimbursement from recipients of Community funds who have not complied with the rules on the use of such funds. Can the Commission say how many recovery orders per project are pending and how long each recovery procedure has been going on? Answer given by Ms Schreyer on behalf of the Commission (8 November 1999) In the revenue and expenditure account and balance sheet the Commission provides information about debt recovery in relation to ásundry debtsí, i. e. all debts other than own resources. An extract from the revenue and expenditure account (pages 38 to 43 of Volume I, Part 1) is being sent to the Honourable Member and Parliamentís Secretariat. As there are a great many debts outstanding, this information can only be taken as an overview, with a breakdown by major area of activity. Sundry debtsí comprise general debts and debts giving rise to a recovery procedure for failure to comply with the rules on the use of Community funds. As regards the second of these categories, a distinction needs to be made between debts arising out of direct Commission expenditure (managed directly by the Commission), where recovery is carried out by the Commissionís own departments, and debts arising out of other expenditure, where recovery is initiated by the Member States. With the present reporting system under Sincom2, there is no way of conducting an individual and ongoing analysis of progress on all the Commissionís projects and the debts associated with them. The Commission is able to trace the history of each debt and identify the debts associated with each particular project. The amount of research needed to answer the Honourable Memberís questions in detail, however, would be out of proportion to the result which they seek to achieve and would go beyond the limits of a reply to a written question. (2000/C 203 E/009) WRITTEN QUESTION E-1584/99 by Glyn Ford (PSE) to the Commission (1 September 1999) Subject: Industrial fishing In view of the recent explosion in industrial fishing in the North Sea ü for example, Denmark increased its fishmeal production from 16 000 tonnes in 1986 to 320 000 tonnes in 1994 ü does not the Commission feel that, on environmental and ecological grounds, the quotas should be reduced? Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission (4 October 1999) The Commission does not consider that there has been an outburst of industrial fisheries from 1986 to 1994. Figures submitted by the International council for the exploration of the sea (ICES) indicate a rather stable fishery, only subject to natural fluctuations in the availability of target stocks