27.11.2004 Official Journal of the European Union L 352/1 | (Acts whose publication is obligatory) COUNCIL REGULATION (EC, EURATOM) No 2028/2004 of 16 November 2004 amending Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1150/2000 implementing Decision 94/728/EC, Euratom on the system of the Communities’ own resources THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 279(2) thereof, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, and in particular Article 183 thereof, Having regard to Council Decision 2000/597/EC, Euratom of 29 September 2000 on the system of the Communities’ own resources ('), and in particular Article 8(2) thereof, Having regard to the proposal from the Commission, Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament (2), Having regard to the opinion of the Court of Auditors (?), Whereas: (1) The Berlin European Council of March 1999 issued a number of conclusions concerning the system of the Communities own resources, which led to the adoption of Decision 2000/597EC, Euratom. ()  Under Article 2(3) and Article 10(2)(c) of Decision 2000/597/EC, Euratom, the percentage retained by Member States by way of collection costs should be set at 25% of the amounts referred to in paragraphs 1(a) and (b) of Article 2 of that Decision which are estab- lished after 31 December 2000 with the exception of those amounts that, to comply with the own resources Regulations, should have been made available to the Communities before 28 February 2001, for which the rate of 10 % should continue to apply. () OJ L 253, 7.10.2000, p. 42. (3) Opinion delivered on 26 February 2004 (not yet published in the Official Journal). () O C 318, 30.12.2003, p. 1. G) The Berlin European Council decided that, in sharing out the financial burden borne by the other Member States for the correction for budgetary imbalances in favour of the United Kingdom, the shares of Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden should be adjusted so that their financial contribution is limited to one quarter of their normal contribution. In accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty and Protocols 4 and 5 attached thereto, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland need not participate in measures falling under Title IV of the EC Treaty and are not therefore obliged to bear the financial consequences as a result of measures taken, other than the administrative costs. They can therefore obtain an adjustment to the own resources paid for each year in which they do not participate. Given that the Member States are under an equal obli- gation to pay interest in the event of delays in entering own resources in the accounts and that difficulties are currently being encountered in the determination of the interest rates to be applied which, in practice, lead to differences between the rates notified by the Member States participating in the Economic and Monetary Union which are difficult to justify, the reference rate for these States should be standardised on the basis of the rate used by the European Central Bank for its refi- nancing operations, which is comparable to those proposed as reference rates for Member States outside the euro area. The dual account system introduced in 1989 was set up to distinguish between recovered and outstanding duties. This system has only partly met its objectives regarding the mechanism used to discharge items from the separate account. Checks by the European Court of Auditors and the Commission have highlighted recurrent anomalies in the keeping of the separate account, which prevent the account from reflecting the real situation as regards recovery. The separate account should be cleansed of those amounts where recovery is unlikely at the end of a given period and the retention of which gives an inac- curate balance. In addition, from the cost-effectiveness angle, Member States will no longer incur the adminis- trative costs involved in monitoring these amounts.