Article 8Community financial assistance
1.Community financial assistance for national programmes shall be implemented in accordance with the rules laid down in Regulation (EC) No 861/2006.
2.The basic data referred to Article 9 of Regulation (EC) No 861/2006 shall cover only those parts of Member States’ national programmes that implement the Community programme.
3.Community financial assistance for national programmes shall only be granted if the rules set out in this Regulation are fully respected.
4.The Commission may, after having afforded the Member States concerned an opportunity of being heard, suspend and/or recover Community financial assistance in the following circumstances:
(a)the evaluation, referred to in Article 7, indicates that the execution of a national programme does not comply with this Regulation; or
(b)the consultation referred to Article 7(3)(b) indicates that the data has not been provided by Member States in accordance with Articles 16(3) and 20(1); or
(c)data quality control and data process were not achieved in accordance with Articles 14(2) and 17.
5.Without prejudice to paragraph 3, the Commission may, after having afforded the Member States concerned an opportunity of being heard, also reduce Community financial assistance in the following circumstances:
(a)if a national programme was not submitted to the Commission by the date established in accordance with Article 4(4);
(b)if a report was not submitted to the Commission by the date established in accordance with Article 7(1);
(c)if an official request for data has been made by an end-user and the data was not delivered in accordance with Articles 20(2) and 20(3) to the end-user concerned or the quality control and the processing of these data were not in accordance to Articles 14(2) and 17.
6.The reduction of the Community financial assistance referred to in paragraphs 4 and 5 shall be proportionate to the degree of non-compliance. The reduction of the Community financial assistance referred to in paragraph 5 shall be applied gradually over time and shall amount to no more than 25 % of the total annual cost of the national programme.
7.Detailed rules for the application of the reduction referred to in paragraph 6 shall be adopted in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 27(2).