Article 97

The rule that there shall be a single signatory for the budget commitment and the corresponding legal commitment may be departed from only in the following cases: where the commitments are provisional; where global commitments relate to financing agreements with third countries; where the institution’s decision constitutes the legal commitment; where the global commitment is implemented by a number of legal commitments, for which different authorising officers are responsible; where, in connection with imprest accounts available for external action, legal commitments must be signed by members of staff of the local units referred to in Article 72 on the instruction of the authorising officer responsible, who remains, however, fully responsible for the underlying transaction. where an institution has delegated authorising officer powers to the director of an interinstitutional European office pursuant to Article 199(1) of the Financial Regulation. If the authorising officer responsible who signed the budget commitment is not available and remains unavailable for a period incompatible with the time limits for concluding the legal commitment, that legal commitment shall be concluded by the person designated under the deputisation rules adopted by each institution, provided that that person has the status of authorising officer in accordance with Article 65(3) of the Financial Regulation.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-04 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.