Forecast of funding requirements
For each rural development programme as referred to in Article 6 of Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 13 ) , and in accordance with point (c)(ii) of the first subparagraph of Article 102(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013, Member States shall send to the Commission, twice per year, by 31 January and 31 August at the latest, their forecasts of the amounts to be funded by the EAFRD for the financial year. In addition, Member States shall send an updated estimate of their funding requests for the following financial year.
Those forecasts and that updated estimate shall be sent by means of structured data using information system SFC2014, provided for in Chapter I of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 184/2014 ( 14 ) .
Declarations of expenditure
1. Paying agencies shall declare expenditure for each rural development programme as referred to in Article 6 of Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013.
For each rural development measure, paying agencies shall specify in a declaration of expenditure:
(a)
the amount of eligible public expenditure for which the paying agency has actually paid the corresponding EAFRD contribution during each of the reference periods specified in paragraph 2 of this Article;
(b)
the additional information on financial instruments as referred to in Title IV of Part Two of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 15 ) ;
(c)
the additional information on advances paid to beneficiaries as referred to in Article 75(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013;
(d)
the amount recovered during the current period as referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article.
2. Once the Commission has approved a rural development programme, Member States shall send to the Commission, in accordance with point (c)(i) of the first subparagraph of Article 102(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013, their declarations of expenditure by the following deadlines:
(a)
by 30 April at the latest in the case of expenditure in the period 1 January to 31 March;
(b)
by 31 July at the latest in the case of expenditure in the period 1 April to 30 June;
(c)
by 10 November at the latest in the case of expenditure in the period 1 July to 15 October;
(d)
by 31 January at the latest in the case of expenditure in the period 16 October to 31 December.
However, all expenditure paid by paying agencies to the beneficiaries in accordance with Article 65(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 prior to the approval of a rural development programme as referred to in Article 6 of Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 is made under the Member States’ responsibility and shall be declared to the Commission in the first declaration of expenditure following the adoption of that programme. The same rule shall apply mutatis mutandis in case of amendment of a rural development programme as referred to in Article 11 of Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013.
3. Declarations of expenditure shall be entered in the form of structured data by paying agencies for rural development programmes in information system SFC2014, provided for in Chapter I of Implementing Regulation (EU) No 184/2014.
4. Where the Commission requires further verifications due to incomplete or unclear information provided or disagreements, differences of interpretation or any other inconsistency relating to a declaration of expenditure for a reference period, resulting in particular from the failure to communicate the information required under Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 and Commission acts adopted under that Regulation, or in view of serious indications that expenditure included in the declaration of expenditure may be affected by an irregularity or that there may be deficiencies in the functioning of the management and control system for rural development, the Member State concerned shall, upon request by the Commission, provide additional information within a period set in that request according to the seriousness of the problem.
The time limit for interim payments laid down in Article 36(5) of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 may be interrupted for all or part of the amount for which payment is claimed, from the date on which the request for information is sent until receipt of the information requested, but no later than the maximum period laid down in Article 83(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013.
Where the Member State concerned fails to respond to the request for additional information within the period set in that request or if the response is considered unsatisfactory or indicates that the applicable rules have not been complied with or that Union funds have been improperly used, the Commission may suspend or reduce payments in accordance with Article 41 of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013.
5. Expenditure declared in respect of a period may contain corrections to data declared in respect of the preceding declaration periods of the same financial year.
Correction to expenditure and assigned revenue to be charged to the financial year not introduced in the declarations mentioned in the paragraphs 2(a), (b) and (c) may be corrected only in the annual accounts to be sent to the Commission in accordance with point (c)(iii) of the first subparagraph of Article 102(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013.
Calculation of the amount to be paid
1. The Union contribution to be paid in respect of the eligible public expenditure shall be calculated for each measure and for each reference period on the basis of the financing plan as referred to in point (h) of Article 8(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 in force on the first day of that period. The calculation shall take account of the corrections to the Union contribution as declared in the declaration of expenditure for that period.
2. Without prejudice to the ceiling provided for in Article 34(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013, where the combined total of the Union contribution paid to the rural development programme exceeds the total programmed for a rural development measure, the amount to be paid shall be reduced to the amount programmed for that measure. Any Union contribution excluded as a result may be paid later provided that an adjusted financing plan has been submitted by the Member State and accepted by the Commission.
3. The Union contribution shall be paid by the Commission, subject to resource availability, into the account(s) opened by each Member State.
Each Member State shall notify the Commission of the account name or numbers in accordance with the format made available to it by the Commission.
