Member States shall ensure that a statutory auditor or an audit firm takes all reasonable steps to ensure that, when carrying out a statutory audit, his, her or its independence is not affected by any existing or potential conflict of interest or business or other direct or indirect relationship involving the statutory auditor or the audit firm carrying out the statutory audit and, where appropriate, its network, managers, auditors, employees, any other natural persons whose services are placed at the disposal or under the control of the statutory auditor or the audit firm, or any person directly or indirectly linked to the statutory aud ...[+++]itor or the audit firm by control.

4. A statutory auditor or an audit firm carrying out statutory audits of public-interest entities and, where the statutory auditor or the audit firm belongs to a network, any member of such network, may provide to the audited entity, to its parent undertaking or to its controlled undertakings non-audit services other than the prohibited non-audit services referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 subject to the approval of the audit committee after it has properly assessed threats to independence and the safeguards applied in accordance with Article 22b of Directive 2006/43/EC.

Subject to Article 15, the former statutory auditor or audit firm shall also grant the incoming statutory auditor or audit firm access to the additional reports referred to in Article 11 in respect of previous years and to any information transmitted to competent authorities pursuant to Articles 12 and 13.

(c) an audit opinion which shall state clearly the opinion of the statutory auditor as to whether the annual financial statements give a true and fair view in accordance with the relevant financial reporting framework and, where appropriate, whether the annual financial statements comply with statutory requirements; the audit opinion shall be either unqualified, qualified, an adverse opinion or, if the statutory auditor is unable to express an audit opinion, a disclaimer of opinion;

an audit opinion which shall state clearly the opinion of the statutory auditors as to whether the annual accounts give a true and fair view in accordance with the relevant financial reporting framework and, where appropriate, whether the annual accounts comply with statutory requirements; the audit opinion shall be either unqualified, qualified, an adverse opinion or, if the statutory auditors are unable to express an audit opinion, a disclaimer of opinion;

an audit opinion which shall state clearly the opinion of the statutory auditors as to whether the consolidated accounts give a true and fair view in accordance with the relevant financial reporting framework and, where appropriate, whether the consolidated accounts comply with statutory requirements; that audit opinion shall be either unqualified, qualified, an adverse opinion or, if the statutory auditors are unable to express an audit opinion, a disclaimer of opinion;