CHAPTER 1

The budget commitments of the Union in respect of each operational programme shall be made in annual instalments during the period between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2020. The decision of the Commission adopting an operational programme shall constitute a financing decision within the meaning of Article 84 of the Financial Regulation and once notified to the Member State concerned, a legal commitment within the meaning of that Regulation. For each operational programme, the budget commitment for the first instalment shall follow the adoption of the operational programme by the Commission. The budget commitments for subsequent instalments shall be made by the Commission before 1 May of each year, on the basis of the decision referred to in the second paragraph, except where Article 16 of the Financial Regulation applies. Payments by the Commission of the contribution from the Fund to each operational programme shall be made in accordance with budget appropriations and subject to available funding. Each payment shall be posted to the earliest open budget commitment of the Fund. Payments shall take the form of pre-financing, interim payments and payment of the final balance. The Commission shall reimburse as interim payments 90 % of the amount resulting from applying the co-financing rate laid down in the decision adopting the operational programme to the eligible public expenditure included in the payment application. The Commission shall determine the remaining amounts to be reimbursed as interim payments or recovered in accordance with Article 50. Notwithstanding Article 21, the contribution from the Fund through the interim payments and the payment of the final balance shall not be higher than the maximum amount of contribution from the Fund as laid down in the decision of the Commission approving the operational programme. The payment application to be submitted to the Commission shall provide all the information necessary for the Commission to produce accounts in accordance with Article 68(3) of the Financial Regulation. Payment applications shall include for the operational programme as a whole and for technical assistance referred to in Article 27(4): the total amount of eligible public expenditure incurred by beneficiaries and paid in implementing operations, as entered in the accounting system of the certifying authority; the total amount of public expenditure incurred in implementing operations as entered in the accounting system of the certifying authority. Eligible expenditure included in a payment application shall be supported by receipted invoices or accounting documents of equivalent probative value, except for forms of support under points (b), (c) and (d) of Article 25(1). For those forms of grants, the amounts included in a payment application shall be the costs calculated on the applicable basis. The Commission shall, in order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Article, adopt, implementing acts, laying down the model for payment applications. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 63(3). The managing authority shall ensure that, in the case of grants to partner organisations, beneficiaries are provided with a float that is sufficient to ensure proper implementation of the operations. Subject to the availability of funding from pre-financing and interim payments, the managing authority shall ensure that a beneficiary receives the total amount of eligible public expenditure due in full and no later than 90 days from the date of submission of the payment claim by the beneficiary. No amount shall be deducted or withheld and no specific charge or other charge with equivalent effect shall be levied that would reduce amounts due to beneficiaries. The payment deadline referred to in paragraph 2 may be interrupted by the managing authority in either of the following duly justified cases: the amount of the payment claim is not due or the appropriate supporting documents, including the documents necessary for management verifications under point (a) of Article 32(4), have not been provided; an investigation has been initiated in relation to a possible irregularity affecting the expenditure concerned. The beneficiary concerned shall be informed in writing of the interruption and the reasons for it. Amounts set out in operational programmes submitted by Member States, statements of expenditure, requests for payment, accounts and expenditure mentioned in the annual and final implementation reports shall be denominated in euro. Member States which have not adopted the euro as their currency on the date of an application for payment shall convert the amounts of expenditure incurred in national currency into euro. Those amounts shall be converted into euro using the monthly accounting exchange rate of the Commission in the month during which the expenditure was registered in the accounts of the certifying authority of the operational programme concerned. The exchange rate shall be published electronically by the Commission each month. When the euro becomes the currency of a Member State, the conversion procedure set out in paragraph 2 shall continue to apply to all expenditure recorded in the accounts by the certifying authority before the date of entry into force of the fixed conversion rate between the national currency and the euro. Following the Commission decision adopting the operational programme, a pre-financing amount of 11 % of the Fund's overall contribution to the operational programme concerned shall be paid by the Commission. Pre-financing shall be used only for payments to beneficiaries in the implementation of the operational programme. It shall be made available without delay to the responsible body for this purpose. The total amount paid as pre-financing shall be reimbursed to the Commission if no payment application for the operational programme concerned is sent within 24 months of the date on which the Commission pays the first pre-financing amount. The Union contribution to the operational programme concerned shall not be affected by such reimbursement. The amount paid as pre-financing shall be totally cleared from the Commission accounts at the latest when the operational programme is closed. The certifying authority shall submit on a regular basis an application for interim payment in accordance with Article 41(2) covering amounts entered in its accounting system in the accounting year. However, the certifying authority, where it considers it to be necessary, may include such amounts in payment applications submitted in subsequent accounting years. The certifying authority shall submit the final application for an interim payment by 31 July following the end of the previous accounting year and, in any event, before the first application for interim payment for the next accounting year. The first application for interim payment shall not be made before the notification to the Commission of the designation of the managing authority and the certifying authority in accordance with Article 35. Interim payments shall not be made for an operational programme unless the annual implementation report has been sent to the Commission in accordance with Article 13. Subject to available funding, the Commission shall make the interim payment no later than 60 days after the date on which a payment application is registered with the Commission. The payment deadline for an interim payment claim may be interrupted by the authorising officer by delegation within the meaning of the Financial Regulation for a maximum period of six months if: following information provided by a national or Union audit body, there is clear evidence to suggest a significant deficiency in the functioning of the management and control system; the authorising officer by delegation has to carry out additional verifications following information that has come to that officer's attention alerting him or her that expenditure in a request for payment is linked to an irregularity having serious financial consequences; there is a failure to submit one of the documents required under Article 59(5) of the Financial Regulation. The Member State may agree to an extension of the interruption period for another three months. The authorising officer by delegation shall limit the interruption to the part of the expenditure covered by the payment claim affected by the elements referred to in the first subparagraph of paragraph 1, unless it is not possible to identify the part of the expenditure affected. The authorising officer by delegation shall inform the Member State and the managing authority in writing immediately of the reason for interruption and shall ask them to remedy the situation. The interruption shall be ended by the authorising officer by delegation as soon as the necessary measures have been taken. All or part of the interim payments may be suspended by the Commission if one or more of the following conditions are met: there is a serious deficiency in the effective functioning of the management and control system of the operational programme, which has put at risk the Union contribution to the operational programme and for which corrective measures have not been taken; expenditure in a statement of expenditure is linked to an irregularity having serious financial consequences which has not been corrected; the Member State has failed to take the necessary action to remedy the situation giving rise to an interruption under Article 46; there is a serious deficiency in the quality and reliability of the monitoring system or of the data on indicators. The Commission may decide, by means of implementing acts, to suspend all or part of interim payments, after having given the Member State the opportunity to present its observations. The Commission shall end suspension of all or part of interim payments where the Member State has taken the necessary measures to enable the suspension to be lifted.

← TITLE VI · All articles · Article 38 →

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