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Whereas, at its meetings in June 1993 in Copenhagen and December 1994 in Essen, the European Council stressed the importance of pursuing the campaign against fraud and irregularities affecting the Community budget; whereas there should be a reinforcement of those measures designed to ensure that the Community funds intended for the implementation of the common agricultural policy (CAP) are not granted to persons or companies which do not offer all the guarantees of reliability as to the proper execution of the operations concerned; Whereas Article 8 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 729/70 of 21 April 1970 on the financing of the common agricultural policy, lays down, in particular, that Member States are under an obligation to take all the measures necessary to ensure that transactions financed by the Fund are actually carried out and properly executed, and to prevent and follow up irregularities;

Whereas Council Regulation (EEC) No 595/91 of 4 March 1991 concerning irregularities and the recovery of sums wrongly paid in connection with the financing of the common agricultural policy and the organization of an information system in this field and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 283/72, provides, among other things, for the Member States regularly to inform the Commission of cases of irregularities and judicial or administrative procedures sanctioning persons who have committed irregularities, in order to acquire systematic knowledge of the nature of the fraudulent practices and to recover sums wrongly paid;

Whereas these provisions need to be supplemented by a Community system allowing all the national authorities to identify, in connection with tendering procedures, grant of export refunds or sales at reduced prices of intervention products, operators who have deliberately or as a result of serious negligence committed an irregularity prejudicial to Community funds or who are suspected on solid grounds of having done so; whereas, on that basis, there must be determined, in the light of the seriousness of the offence and depending on whether it has been established or suspected, a series of varied measures ranging from reinforced controls to the exclusion of the operators concerned from taking part in operations to be determined when their fraudulent actions are established;

Whereas, in order to provide operators with a maximum of guarantees, it would be advisable to adopt the essential features of the corresponding provisions of Regulation (EEC) No 595/91, in particular with regard to the observance of confidentiality and professional secrecy and the national rules relating to criminal proceedings; whereas, with regard to data protection, the relevant provisions laid down for that purpose in the rules on mutual assistance in customs and agricultural matters may be applied; Whereas this system must be supplementary to the specific provisions already existing or to be adopted in the future under the CAP with a view to preventing irregularities, in particular those provisions relating to controls and sanctions established by the Commission by virtue of its powers confirmed by the Court of Justice;

Whereas, furthermore, as part of an across-the-board campaign against fraud, on 7 July 1994 the Commission submitted a proposal for a Regulation (EC, Euratom) on protection of the Community's financial interests, whereas, on the adoption of that Regulation by the Council, the common set of legal rules enacted by it for all areas of Community policy will apply to the measures introduced by this Regulation; whereas, until that Regulation is adopted, provision should be made for the detailed rules for the application of this Regulation temporarily to include similar rules, in particular as regards the definition of the irregularities involved, HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: