the grounds1 set out in Article 173 of the EEC Treaty, the Member State can become a party to the proceedings and thus ensure a thorough ventilation of any complaint of an absue of power by the institution concerned.
33. In some cases the Treaty or regulation requires the Member State to provide penalties under its own domestic legislation for breaches of Com- munity law. The fact that the sanctions imposed by Community provisions are of a civil character suggests that the penalties provided by the national law should be of the same character. It would therefore be appropriate to provide monetary penalties recoverable by a civil rather than a criminal process (similar to the fines and penalties under the Income Tax Acts, which by virtue of section 56(3) of the Finance Act 1960 are recoverable by civil proceedings in the High Court, or in Scotland, the Court of Session). The only exception would be for cases in which the breach consisted in the furnishing of false information. It may have to be recognised, however, that to avoid undue disparties between penalties provided by the various Member States some harmonisation will be necessary in this field.
34. The Commission or the High Authority, as the case may be, are in certain instances, empowered by the three Treaties to authorise their own inspectors to enter premises, inspect books, premises and vehicles and interrogate persons, and the Member State on whose territory the powers are exercised is in each case enabled to insist on its own officials co-operating with the Commission's or High Authority's officials in the exercise of the powers. In the event of compulsion being necessary, the Member State is required to lend its assistance. Except in the case of inspections for purposes of security control in the nuclear energy field, where Article 81' of the EURATOM Treaty provides for the issue of a warrant by the President of the European court, it should be open to the United Kingdom to provide that compulsory powers should not be exercised except in pursuance of an order made by the United Kingdom court. In any event, except for the purposes of security control in the nuclear energy field, the Community institutions rely mainly on information obtained for them by the authorities of the Member States or on voluntary co-operation of the industries or undertakings concerned.
HARMONISATION AND APPROXIMATION OF LAWS
35. Some mention must be made of the Articles of the EEC Treaty dealing with harmonisation and approximation of laws. Article 99 empowers the Council acting on proposals by the Commission to take action for harmonising the legislation of Member States concerning turnover taxes, excise duties and other forms of indirect taxation. Article 100 covers such legislative and administrative provisions of Member States as affect directly the establishment or functioning of the Common Market. Under both Articles the scope for the creation of Community law is therefore confined to
1 The grounds are "lack of jurisdiction, infringements of important procedural rules of this Treaty or of any rule of law relating to its implementation, or misuse of powers also Article 146 of the EURATOM Treaty and Article 33 of the ECSC Treaty.
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