Interinstitutional cooperation in the budgetary procedure
Article 23
The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission (hereinafter "the institutions") shall take measures to facilitate the annual budgetary procedure. The institutions shall cooperate in good faith throughout the procedure with a view to reconciling their positions. The institutions shall, at all stages of the procedure, cooperate through appropriate interinstitutional contacts in order to monitor the progress of the work and analyse the degree of convergence. The institutions shall ensure that their respective calendars of work are coordinated as far as possible, in order to enable proceedings to be conducted in a coherent and convergent fashion, leading to the final adoption of the general budget of the Union. Trilogues may be held at all stages of the procedure and at different levels of representation, depending on the nature of the expected discussions. Each institution, in accordance with its own rules of procedure, shall designate its participants for each meeting, define its mandate for the negotiations and inform the other institutions in good time of the arrangements for the meetings.