Undue payments and penalties
Article 8
1. In the event that recognition under Articles 154 and 158 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 is withdrawn because the beneficiary organisation has failed to fulfil its obligations intentionally or through gross negligence, the beneficiary organisation in question shall be ineligible to receive EU financing under the entire work programme. 2. If a measure has not been implemented in conformity with a work programme, the beneficiary organisation shall be ineligible for financing for the measure in question. 3. In the case of a measure which is subsequently found to be ineligible, and which has been implemented in conformity with an approved work programme, the Member State may decide to pay the financing due or not to recover amounts which have already been paid out, if such a decision is permitted in comparable cases financed from the national budget and if the beneficiary organisation has not acted negligently or intentionally. 4. In the event of gross negligence or false declaration, the beneficiary organisation shall be ineligible to receive: (a) public financing under the entire work programme; and (b) EU financing under Article 29 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 for the entire three-year period following that in which the irregularity was discovered. 5. Where a beneficiary organisation is deemed ineligible for financing pursuant to paragraphs 1, 2 or 4, the competent authority shall recover the public financing already disbursed to that organisation. 6. Interest shall be added, where necessary, to the EU contribution recovered pursuant to paragraph 5, calculated on the basis of: (a) the period elapsing between payment and reimbursement by the beneficiary; (b) the rate applied by the European Central Bank to its main refinancing operations as published in the C series of the Official Journal of the European Union and in force on the date on which the undue payment is made, plus three percentage points. 7. EU financing recovered under this Article shall be paid to the paying agency and deducted from expenditure financed by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund.