(2) Any meal or rest breaks taken by an officer during the performance of a special service shall not be included in the calculation of the time spent by the officer in the performance of the service.

All this complexity increases the time spent on policing, and as we all know, time is of course money.

1. Notes that public procurement accounts for approximately 17 % of the EU’s GDP and is a key market-based instrument geared to the needs of society which, in addition to meeting other objectives, can play a role in fostering sustainable employment, working conditions, innovation particularly for businesses, above all SMEs, promoting social inclusion, and addressing the employment needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged social groups, and can make an important contribution towards meeting the EU 2020 targets; stresses, furthermore, the important role that public procurement can play in promoting a European social model based on quality jobs, equal opportunities, non-discrimination and social inclusion; emphasises, at the same time, that the ...[+++] application of procurement law to the provision of personal social services is often not the best way of ensuring optimum results for the users of the services in question;

H. whereas the rules relating to Structural and Cohesion Funds are, by their very nature, complex and therefore difficult to transpose properly into national law and to comply with, and are liable to lead to errors, so that Member States and regions spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to manage and control these errors, and therefore these rules need to remain stable over time in order to promote a better sense of ownership; whereas, however, simplification of the implementation of financial instruments should be encouraged,