Defined in Article 1, Paragraph 2 in the horizontal Council regulation on the protection of the Communities’ financial interests (2988/95) as following: "Irregularity” shall mean any infringement of a provision of a Community law resulting from an act or omission by an economic operator, which has, or would have, the effect of prejudicing the general budget of the Communities or budgets managed by them, either by reducing or losing revenue accruing from own resources collected directly on behalf of the Communities, or by an unjustified item of expenditure.