1. Every item of expenditure shall be committed, validated, authorised and paid.
2. Every commitment of expenditure shall be preceded by a financing decision.
3. The work programme of Europol shall be equivalent to a financing decision for the activities it covers, provided that they are clearly identified and the underlying criteria are spelled out precisely. The work programme shall comprise detailed objectives and performance indicators. Such objectives and performance indicators shall not contain Europol operational, strategic and classified information.
4. Administrative appropriations may be implemented without a prior financing decision.
Section 1 — Commitment of expenditures
1. The budget commitment is the operation reserving the appropriations necessary to cover subsequent payments to honour a legal commitment.
2. The legal commitment is the act whereby the authorising officer responsible enters into or establishes an obligation which results in a charge for the budget.
3. The budget commitment is individual when the beneficiary and the amount of the expenditure are known.
4. The budget commitment is global when at least one of the elements necessary to identify the individual commitment is still not known.
5. The budget commitment is provisional when it is intended to cover routine administrative expenditure and either the amount or the final beneficiaries are not definitively known. The provisional budget commitment shall be implemented either by the conclusion of one or more individual legal commitments giving rise to an entitlement to subsequent payments or, in exceptional cases relating to expenditure on staff management, directly by payments
1. In respect of any measure which may give rise to expenditure chargeable to the budget, the authorising officer responsible must first make a budget commitment before entering into a legal obligation with third parties.
2. Global budget commitments shall cover the total cost of the corresponding individual legal commitments concluded up to 31 December of year n +1 .
Individual legal commitments relating to individual or provisional budget commitments shall be concluded by 31 December of year n .
At the end of the periods referred to in the first and second subparagraphs, the unused balance of these budget commitments shall be decommitted by the authorising officer responsible.
3. The legal commitments entered into for actions extending over more than one financial year and the corresponding budget commitments shall, save in the case of staff expenditure, have a final date for implementation set in compliance with the principle of sound financial management.
Any parts of such commitments which have not been executed six months after that final date shall be decommitted in accordance with Article 11.
The amount of a budget commitment corresponding to a legal commitment for which no payment within the meaning of Article 67 has been made in a period of three years following the signing of the legal commitment shall be decommitted.
When adopting a budget commitment, the authorising officer responsible shall ensure that:
(a)
the expenditure has been charged to the correct item in the budget;
(b)
the appropriations are available;
(c)
the expenditure conforms to the Europol Financial Rules;
(d)
the principle of sound financial management is complied with.
Section 2 — Validation of expenditure
Validation of expenditure is the act whereby the authorising officer responsible:
(a)
verifies the existence of the creditor’s entitlement;
(b)
verifies the conditions in which payment is due;
(c)
determines or verifies the reality and the amount of the claim.
1. Validation of any expenditure shall be based on supporting documents attesting the creditor’s entitlement, on the basis of a statement of services actually rendered, supplies actually delivered or work actually carried out, or on the basis of other documents justifying payment.
2. The validation decision shall be expressed by the signing of a ‘passed for payment’ voucher by the authorising officer responsible.
3. In a non-computerised system, ‘passed for payment’ shall take the form of a stamp incorporating the signature of the authorising officer responsible. In a computerised system, ‘passed for payment’ shall take the form of validation using the personal password of the authorising officer responsible.
Section 3 — Authorisation of expenditure
1. Authorisation of expenditure is the act whereby the authorising officer responsible, by issuing a payment order, instructs the accounting officer to pay an item of expenditure which he/she validated.
1a. Where periodic payments are made with regard to services rendered, including rental services, or goods delivered, and subject to his/her risk analysis, the authorising officer may order the application of a direct debit system.
2. The payment order shall be dated and signed by the authorising officer responsible, then sent to the accounting officer. The supporting documents shall be kept by the authorising officer responsible in accordance with Article 38(6).
3. Where appropriate, the payment order sent to the accounting officer shall be accompanied by a document certifying that the goods have been entered in the inventories referred to in Article 90(1).
Section 4 — Payment of expenditure
1. Payment shall be made on production of proof that the relevant action has been carried out in accordance with the provisions of the Europol Decision within the meaning of Article 49 of the general Financial Regulation or the contract or grant agreement, and shall cover one of the following operations:
(a)
payment of the entire amount due;
(b)
payment of the amount due in any of the following ways:
(i)
prefinancing, which may be divided into a number of payments;
(ii)
one or more interim payments;
(iii)
payment of the balance of the amounts due. Prefinancing shall count in full or in part against the interim payments.
The entire prefinancing and interim payments shall count against the payment of balances.
2. A distinction shall be made in the accounts between the different types of payment referred to in paragraph 1 at the time they are made.
Payment of expenditure shall be made by the accounting officer within the limits of the funds available.
Section 5 — Time limits for expenditure operations
The validation, authorisation and payment of expenditure must be carried out within the time limits specified in, and in accordance with the provisions of the Europol Financial Implementing Rules.
Source: EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the EU), © European Union, reuse permitted under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
