EU BUDGET: COMMISSION HOPES TO PAY ITS SUPPLIERS SOONER.

Late payments have an adverse effect on companies whose cash flows, profit and competitive positions are hardly able to take the strain. In May 1001, the Commission decided to settle its bills with an overall period of 60 day after receiving an invoice (or an equivalent demand for payment). 40 days are for the authorising services and 20 for the central services (financial control, accounts, and the department in charge of finance). In 1995, the Commission expected that 95% of transactions would be completed within 60 days and no transactions should theoretically take any longer than 90 days. It instructed its authorising officers to let recipients know, within 25 days of receiving an invoice, if the period might be more than 60 days for whatever reason.Notwithstanding these prescriptions and follow-up measures, there does not seem to be any real improvement according to the statistics available. This situation has to be seen in the context of an ever-increasing number of transactions (twice as many as five years ago). The number of payment orders issued by the authorising services and validated by the accounting department totalled about 197,000 in 1995 and rose to 356,000 in 1999: up 80% in four years. "The poorer performance is no doubt due, to a large extent, to the stricter rules governing the way the services enter the invoice follow-up information in the accounting system", according to Michaele Schreyer.In a Communication is published in June 1997, the European Commission decided to alter its contractual policy by adding a clause to give an official setting to the maximum 60-day period during which payments had to be made. It also envisaged late payment interests should the debtor demand this after the period was up, unless the period was suspended at the instigation of the Commission. This measure was put into effect, as in 1999 alone, 41 commitment proposals involving late payment interest were made...