Section 5

Partial closure of operational programmes may be made at periods to be determined by the Member State. Partial closure shall relate to operations completed during the period up to 31 December of the previous year. For the purposes of this Regulation, an operation shall be deemed completed where the activities under it have been actually carried out and for which all expenditure by the beneficiaries and the corresponding public contribution have been paid. Partial closure shall be made on the condition that the Member State sends the following to the Commission by 31 December of a given year: a statement of expenditure relating to the operations referred to in paragraph 1; a declaration for partial closure in accordance with Article 62(1)(d)(iii). Any financial corrections made in accordance with Articles 98 and 99 concerning operations subject to partial closure shall be net financial corrections. The Commission shall pay the final balance provided that: the Member State has sent an application for payment comprising the following documents by 31 March 2017: an application for payment of the final balance and a statement of expenditure in accordance with Article 78; the final implementation report for the operational programme, including the information set out in Article 67; a closure declaration referred to in Article 62(1)(e); and there is no reasoned opinion by the Commission in respect of an infringement under Article 226 of the Treaty as regards the operation(s) for which the expenditure is declared in the application for payment in question. Failure to send any of the documents referred to in paragraph 1 to the Commission shall automatically result in the decommitment of the final balance, in accordance with Article 93. The Commission shall inform the Member State of its opinion on the content of the closure declaration referred to in paragraph 1(a)(iii) within five months of the date of its receipt. The closure declaration shall be deemed to be accepted in the absence of observations by the Commission within that five-month period. Subject to available funding, the Commission shall pay the final balance within no more than 45 days from the later of the following dates: the date on which it accepts the final report in accordance with Article 67(4); and the date on which it accepts the closure declaration referred to in paragraph 1(a)(iii) of this Article. Without prejudice to paragraph 6, the balance of the budgetary commitment shall be decommitted 12 months following the payment. The closure of the operational programme shall be on the date of the earliest of the following three events: the payment of the final balance determined by the Commission on the basis of the documents referred to in paragraph 1; the sending of a debit note for sums unduly paid by the Commission to the Member State in respect of the operational programme; the decommitment of the final balance of the budgetary commitment. The Commission shall inform the Member State about the date of the closure of the operational programme within a deadline of two months. Notwithstanding the results of any audits performed by the Commission or the European Court of Auditors, the final balance paid by the Commission for the operational programme may be amended within nine months of the date on which it is paid or, where there is a negative balance to be reimbursed by the Member State, within nine months of the date on which the debit note is issued. Such amendment of the balance shall not affect the date of the closure of the operational programme as set out in paragraph 5. Without prejudice to the rules governing State aid under Article 87 of the Treaty, the managing authority shall ensure that all the supporting documents regarding expenditure and audits on the operational programme concerned are kept available for the Commission and the Court of Auditors for: a period of three years following the closure of an operational programme as defined in Article 89(3); a period of three years following the year in which partial closure took place, in the case of documents regarding expenditure and audits on operations referred to in paragraph 2. These periods shall be interrupted either in the case of legal proceedings or at the duly motivated request of the Commission. The managing authority shall make available to the Commission on request a list of completed operations which have been subject to partial closure under Article 88. The documents shall be kept either in the form of the originals or in versions certified to be in conformity with the originals on commonly accepted data carriers.

← art_87__para_2__text_1 · All articles · Article 88 →

Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-01 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.