Article 6 Safeguard measures

The Commission shall suspend the payments and, stating its reasons, request that the Home Rule Government of Greenland submit its comments and, where appropriate, carry out any corrections, within a specified period of time where, after completing the necessary checks, it concludes that:

The period of time within which the Home Rule Government of Greenland may respond to a request to submit its comments and, where appropriate, make corrections, shall be two months, except in duly justified cases where a longer period may be agreed by the Commission.

Where the Home Rule Government of Greenland objects to the observations made by the Commission, the Home Rule Government of Greenland and the Government of Denmark shall be invited to a partnership meeting by the Commission, in which all sides shall try to reach an agreement on the observations and the conclusions to be drawn from them.

Whenever the Home Rule Government of Greenland objects to the observations made by the Commission and an ad hoc partnership meeting takes place, the three-month period under paragraph 5 within which the Commission may take a decision shall begin to run from the date of the partnership meeting.

Where the Commission proposes financial corrections, the Home Rule Government of Greenland shall be given the opportunity to demonstrate, through an examination of the files concerned, that the actual extent of irregularity was less than the Commission's assessment.

Except in duly justified cases, the time allowed for this examination shall not exceed a further period of two months after the two-month period referred to in paragraph 2. The Commission shall take account of any evidence supplied by the Home Rule Government of Greenland within the time limits.

At the end of the period set out in paragraph 2, the Commission shall, where no agreement has been reached and the Home Rule Government of Greenland has not made the corrections, take account of any comments made by the Home Rule Government of Greenland and the Government of Denmark and decide within three months to:

Without prejudice to paragraphs 1 to 5, the Commission may, after due verification, suspend all or part of an interim payment where it finds that the expenditure concerned is linked to a serious irregularity which has not been corrected and that immediate action is needed.

The Commission shall inform the Home Rule Government of Greenland of the action taken and the reasons for it. Where, after five months, the reasons for the suspension persist or the Home Rule Government of Greenland has not notified the Commission of the measures taken to correct the serious irregularity, the amounts receivable may be recovered in accordance with the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities.