Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/205 of 18 December 2023 supplementing Regulation (EU) 2021/2116 of the European Parliament and of the Council with specific provisions on the reporting of irregularities concerning the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, and repealing Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/1971

• CELEX: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/205
• Articles: 6

Article 1 Subject matter

This Regulation determines which irregularities are to be reported and establishes which data are to be provided by Member States to the Commission.

Article 2 Definitions

The definitions laid down in Regulation (EU) 2021/2116 shall apply. In addition, for the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply:

(a)

‘suspected fraud’ means an irregularity that gives rise to the initiation of administrative or judicial proceedings at national level in order to establish the presence of intentional behaviour, in particular fraud or other criminal offences, as referred to, respectively, in Article 3(2), points (a) and (b), and Article 4(1), (2) and (3) of Directive (EU) 2017/1371 and, for the Member States not bound by that Directive, Article 1(1), point (a), of the Convention drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, on the protection of the European Communities’ financial interests;

(b)

‘primary administrative or judicial finding’ means a first written assessment by a competent authority, either administrative or judicial, which has concluded on the basis of specific facts that an irregularity has been committed, regardless of the possibility that this conclusion may subsequently have to be revised or withdrawn as a result of developments in the course of the administrative or judicial procedure.

Article 3 Reporting

1.   Member States shall report to the Commission irregularities that have been the subject of a primary administrative or judicial finding.

2.   By way of derogation from paragraph 1, Member States shall not report to the Commission:

(a)

irregularities involving a contribution from the funds of under EUR 10 000; this derogation shall not apply to irregularities which are interlinked and which involve a total contribution from the fund of over EUR 10 000, even when no individual irregularity exceeds that ceiling on its own;

(b)

cases where the irregularity consists solely of the failure to execute, in whole or in part, either an operation included in the co-financed programme or a direct payment owing to the non-fraudulent bankruptcy of the beneficiary;

(c)

cases brought to the attention of the managing authority, paying agency or other competent authority by the beneficiary voluntarily and before detection by either authority, whether before or after the payment of the public contribution;

(d)

cases which are detected and corrected by the managing authority, paying agency or other competent authority, before inclusion of the expenditure concerned in a declaration of expenditure submitted to the Commission.

The derogations in points (c) and (d) of the preceding subparagraph shall not apply to the cases of irregularity as referred to in Article 2, point (a).

3.   In the initial report of the irregularities, Member States shall provide the following information:

(a)

the fund, support scheme, measure, operation concerned, and, where appropriate, the name and the common identification code (CCI) number of the operational programme, the common market organisations affected, the sectors and products concerned and the budget line;

(b)

the identity of the natural or legal persons concerned, or both, or of any other entity having a role in the commission of the irregularity and their role, except where that information is irrelevant for the purpose of combating irregularities, given the nature of the irregularity concerned;

(c)

the national ID number of the persons concerned;

(d)

the VAT number of the persons concerned;

(e)

the unique beneficiary ID number;

(f)

the region or area where the operation has been carried out, identified using appropriate information such as the NUTS (nomenclature of territorial units for statistics) level;

(g)

the provision or provisions at Union and national level which have been infringed;

(h)

the date and source of the first information leading to the suspicion that an irregularity has been committed;

(i)

the practices employed in committing the irregularity;

(j)

where appropriate, whether the practice gives rise to suspected fraud;

(k)

the manner in which the irregularity was discovered;

(l)

the OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) case number, where applicable;

(m)

the reference to pre-debtors or the debtors ledger;

(n)

where appropriate, the Member States and third countries involved;

(o)

the period during which, or the date on which, the irregularity was committed;

(p)

the date on which the primary administrative or judicial finding on the irregularity was established;

(q)

the total amount of expenditure, expressed in terms of the Union’s contribution, the national contribution and the private contribution;

(r)

the amount affected by the irregularity expressed in terms of the Union’s contribution and the national contribution;

(s)

in cases of suspected fraud, and where no payment of the public contribution has been made to the beneficiary, the amount which would have been unduly paid had the irregularity not been identified, expressed in terms of the Union’s contribution and the national contribution;

(t)

the nature of the irregular expenditure.

4.   Where national provisions provide for the confidentiality of investigations, reporting of the information shall be subject to the authorisation of the competent tribunal, court or other body in accordance with national rules.

5.   Where some of the information referred to in paragraph 3, in particular information concerning the practices employed in committing the irregularity and the manner in which it was discovered, is not available or needs to be rectified or complemented, Member States shall provide the Commission with the missing or correct information in follow-up reports of irregularities.

6.   Member States shall keep the Commission informed of the initiation, conclusion or abandonment of any procedures or proceedings for imposing administrative measures, administrative penalties or criminal penalties, with regard to the reported irregularities, as well as of the outcome of those procedures or proceedings. With regard to irregularities for which penalties have been imposed, Member States shall also indicate:

(a)

whether the penalties are of an administrative or a criminal nature and details of the penalties;

(b)

whether the penalties result from a breach of Union or national law;

(c)

whether fraud was established.

7.   At the Commission’s written request Member States shall provide information in relation to a specific irregularity or group of irregularities.

Article 4 Use and processing of information reported

1.   The Commission may use any information provided by Member States in accordance with this Regulation to perform risk analysis, using information technology support, and may, on the basis of the information obtained, produce reports and develop systems serving to identify risks more effectively.

2.   Information provided under this Regulation shall be covered by professional secrecy and protected in the same way as it would be protected by the national legislation of the Member State that provided it and by the relevant provisions applicable to the Union’s institutions. Member States and the Commission shall take all necessary precautions to ensure that the information remains confidential.

3.   The information referred to in paragraph 2 shall not, in particular, be disclosed to persons other than those in the Member States or within the Union’s institutions, agencies, offices and bodies whose duties require that they have access to it, unless the Member State providing it has given its express consent.

4.   The information referred to in paragraph 2 shall not be used for any purposes other than the protection of the Union’s financial interests unless the Member State providing it had given its express consent.

Article 5 Repeal and transitional provisions

Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/1971 is repealed.

It shall, however, continue to apply to the reporting of irregularities in respect of assistance granted for the programming period 2014-2020 under Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013.

Article 6 Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union .