Common budgetary timeline
Article 4
1. Member States shall, in the context of the European Semester, make public, preferably by 15 April but no later than 30 April each year, their national medium-term fiscal plans in accordance with their medium-term budgetary framework. Such plans shall include at least all the information to be provided in their stability programmes and shall be presented together with their national reform programmes and the stability programmes. Such plans shall be consistent with the framework for economic policy coordination in the context of the annual cycle of surveillance, which includes, in particular, the general guidance to Member States issued by the Commission and the European Council at the beginning of the cycle. They shall also be consistent with the recommendations issued in the context of the SGP and, where appropriate, with recommendations issued in the context of the annual cycle of surveillance, including the macroeconomic imbalances procedure as established by Regulation (EU) No 1176/2011, and with opinions on economic partnership programmes referred to in Article 9. National medium-term fiscal plans and national reform programmes shall include indications on how the reforms and measures set out are expected to contribute to the achievement of the targets and national commitments established within the framework of the Union's strategy for growth and jobs. Furthermore, national medium-term fiscal plans or national reform programmes shall include indications on the expected economic returns on non-defence public investment projects that have a significant budgetary impact. National medium-term fiscal plans and stability programmes may be the same document. 2. The draft budget for the forthcoming year for the central government and the main parameters of the draft budgets for all the other subsectors of the general government shall be made public annually not later than 15 October. 3. The budget for the central government shall be adopted or fixed upon and made public annually not later than 31 December together with the updated main budgetary parameters for the other sub-sectors of the general government. Member States shall have in place reversionary budget procedures to be applied if, for objective reasons beyond the control of the government, the budget is not adopted or fixed upon and made public by 31 December. 4. National medium-term fiscal plans and draft budgets referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 shall be based on independent macroeconomic forecasts, and shall indicate whether the budgetary forecasts have been produced or endorsed by an independent body. Those forecasts shall be made public together with the national medium-term fiscal plans and the draft budgets that they underpin.