However, pointless expenses only exist in national budgets of Member States, not in our tiny community budget.

‘irregularity’ has the meaning assigned to it by Article 1(2) of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2988/95, that is any infringement of a provision of Community law resulting from an act or omission by an economic operator which has, or would have, the effect of prejudicing the general budget of the Communities either by reducing or losing revenue accruing from own resources collected directly on behalf of the Communities, or by charging an unjustified item of expenditure to the Community budget;

41. For the CFSP expenditure charged to the general budget of the European Communities in accordance with Article 28 of the Treaty on European Union, the institutions will endeavour, in the conciliation procedure provided for in Annex II and on the basis of the preliminary draft budget established by the Commission, to secure each year agreement on the amount of the operating expenditure to be charged to the Community budget and on the distribution of this amount between the articles of the CFSP budget chapter suggested in the fourth subparagraph of this paragraph.

- Serious damage to the Community's financial interests (fraud with implications for the Community budget, or violation of Community law in relation to a project receiving financial support from the Community budget [23]).

39. For the CFSP expenditure charged to the general budget of the European Communities in accordance with Article 28 of the Treaty on European Union, the institutions will endeavour, in the conciliation procedure provided for in Annex III and on the basis of the preliminary draft budget established by the Commission, to secure each year agreement on the amount of the operational expenditure to be charged to the Community budget and on the distribution of this amount between the articles of the CFSP budget chapter suggested in the fourth subparagraph of this paragraph.

- Draws attention to the adverse effect which integration into the budget of the technical research activities covered by the ECSC Treaty, which are mostly of a sectoral nature, could have on the availability of funds under category 3 of the Community budget, of which 60.9% were in 1995 allocated to actions deriving from the implementation of the fourth framework programme for research, technological development and demonstration; draws attention to the fact that, according to a Commission study, owing to a difference of approach to research promotion between the ECSC and the EU, only 15% of appropriations for research projects in the s ...[+++]teel sector and 50% of appropriations for research projects in the coal sector meet the criteria of the framework programme;