The areas targeted by these ties between the Correctional Service and specialized community mental health resources range from psychiatric supervision, adherence to pharmacological and/or psychosocial treatment and housing needs, to job skills through supervised workshops and support for day-to-day activities.

In future, the Commission intends: to continue its traditional role as regards on-the-spot inspections, while improving its inspection methods (audit tools, etc.); to continue strengthening its monitoring of recovery measures in the Member States by introducing an IT tool allowing user-friendly treatment of cases of irrecoverable entitlements that are written off and reported to the Commission. to continue monitoring the acceding countries, so as to obtain a reasonable degree of assurance that these countries’ systems for collecting traditional own resources meet Community requirements by the time of accession.

In order to prevent any difference in treatment between the Member States that made up the Community at 30 April 2004 and the Member States which joined on 1 May 2004 as regards the financing of agri-environmental measures in the areas covered by Objective 1, the rate of the financial contribution applicable to the latter should be brought into line with that applicable to the former as from the date of accession, in accordance with the third indent of the second subparagraph of Article 47(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999.

In February 2003, the Commission set up a Task Force, in co-operation with experts from the National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) of Member States, Acceding Countries, the ECB, and the EIB, to clarify such statistical treatment and to develop the necessary technical guidance regardless of legal provisions relating to PPP ownership.

It is recommended that the current ESA rule be adhered to in order to obtain a parallel treatment of rented and owner-occupied dwellings and to avoid double-counting for owner-occupiers.

In an effort to rally support for the universal abolition of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the EU contacted a number of countries to urge them to accede to the United Nations Convention against Torture and to cooperate with the existing mechanisms in this area.