Article 39

For Member States belonging to the European Union before 1 May 2004, the following rules shall apply to rural development programmes for the period 2000 to 2006, which are financed by the EAGGF Guarantee Section in accordance with Article 3(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1258/1999. Payments to beneficiaries shall cease no later than 15 October 2006 and related expenditure by the Member States shall be reimbursed to them by the Commission no later than under the declaration concerning expenditure for October 2006. However, the Commission may in justified cases and in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 41(2) authorise payments until 31 December 2006, subject to reimbursement of identical amounts to the EAGF of the advances made to the Member States for the period of implementation of these programmes under the second subparagraph of Article 5(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1258/1999. Advances made to the Member States for the period of implementation of these programmes under the second subparagraph of Article 5(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1258/1999 shall be deducted by them from expenditure financed by the EAGF at the latest with the declaration of expenditure for December 2006. At the request of the Member States, expenditure incurred by accredited paying agencies between 16 October and 31 December 2006 with the exception of expenditure authorised in accordance with the second sentence of point (a) of this Article shall be taken over by the EAFRD budget under the programming of rural development for 2007 to 2013. The financial resources available in a Member State on 1 January 2007 following reductions in or cancellations of the amounts of payments which that State has made voluntarily or by way of a penalty, under Articles 3, 4 and 5 of Regulation (EC) No 1259/1999, shall be used by that Member State to finance the rural development measures referred to in Article 4 of this Regulation. If Member States do not use the financial resources referred to in paragraph (d) within a period to be determined in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 41(2), the corresponding amounts shall be repaid to the EAGF budget. For Member States joining the European Union on 1 May 2004, amounts committed to finance rural development measures in accordance with Article 3(1) under a Commission decision taken between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2006, in respect of which the documents required for closure of the assistance have not been sent to the Commission by the end of the time allowed for transmission of the final report, shall be automatically decommitted by the Commission no later than 31 December 2010 and shall result in the reimbursement by the Member States of amounts wrongly received. Amounts relating to operations or programmes which are the subject of legal proceedings or an administrative appeal which, under the legislation of the Member State, has a suspensory effect shall be excluded from the calculation of the amount to be automatically decommitted, as provided for in paragraphs 1 and 2.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-09 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.