Definitions
Article 2
For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply: (1) ‘country-specific recommendation’ means the guidance annually addressed by the Council to a Member State on economic, budgetary, employment and structural policies in accordance with Articles 121 and 148 TFEU; (2) ‘net expenditure’ means government expenditure net of interest expenditure, discretionary revenue measures, expenditure on programmes of the Union fully matched by revenue from Union funds, national expenditure on co-financing of programmes funded by the Union, cyclical elements of unemployment benefit expenditure, and one-offs and other temporary measures; (3) ‘reference trajectory’ means the multiannual net expenditure trajectory transmitted by the Commission to frame the dialogue with Member States where government debt exceeds 60 % of gross domestic product (GDP) or where the government deficit exceeds 3 % of GDP when drawing up their national medium-term fiscal-structural plans; (4) ‘technical information’ means the guidance transmitted by the Commission upon request to Member States with government debt not exceeding 60 % of GDP and government deficit not exceeding 3 % of GDP before Member States draw up their national medium-term fiscal-structural plans; (5) ‘net expenditure path’ means the multi-annual trajectory for net expenditure of a Member State; (6) ‘national medium-term fiscal-structural plan’ means the document containing the fiscal, reform and investment commitments of a Member State, covering a period of four or five years depending on the regular length of the legislative term of that Member State; (7) ‘annual progress report’ means a report of a Member State on the implementation of the national medium-term fiscal-structural plan, including the net expenditure path as set by the Council and the reforms and investments; (8) ‘adjustment period’ means the period over which the fiscal adjustment of a Member State takes place, covering a period of four years or, in the case of an extension, a period of four years plus an additional period of up to three years; (9) ‘control account’ means a record of the cumulated upward and downward deviations of the observed net expenditure in a Member State from the net expenditure path as set by the Council; (10) ‘structural balance’ means the cyclically adjusted general government balance net of one-offs and other temporary measures; (11) ‘structural primary balance’ means the structural balance net of interest expenditure.