For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions shall apply:
‘programming’: the process of organisation, decision-taking and financing in several stages intended to implement, on a multiannual basis, the joint action by the Community and the Member States to achieve the priority goals of the EAFRD;
‘region’: territorial unit corresponding to level 1 or 2 of the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS level 1 and 2) within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 May 2003 on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) (1);
‘axis’: a coherent group of measures with specific goals resulting directly from their implementation and contributing to one or more of the objectives set out in Article 4;
‘measure’: a set of operations contributing to the implementation of an axis as referred to in Article 4(2);
‘operation’: a project, contract or arrangement, or other action selected according to criteria laid down for the rural development programme concerned and implemented by one or more beneficiaries allowing achievement of the objectives set out in Article 4;
‘common monitoring and evaluation framework’: a general approach developed by the Commission and the Member States defining a limited number of common indicators relating to the baseline situation and the financial execution, outputs, results and impacts of the programmes;
‘local development strategy’: a coherent set of operations to meet local objectives and needs implemented in partnership at the appropriate level;
‘beneficiary’: an operator, body or firm, whether public or private, responsible for implementing operations or receiving support;
‘public expenditure’: any public contribution to the financing of operations whose origin is the budget of the State, of regional and local authorities, of the European Communities and any similar expenditure. Any contribution to the financing of operations whose origin is the budget of public law bodies or associations of one or more regional or local authorities or public law bodies within the meaning of Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts (2) shall be regarded as public contribution;
‘Convergence Objective’: the objective of the action for the least developed Member States and regions according to the Community legislation governing the European Regional Development Fund (hereinafter the ERDF), the European Social Fund (hereinafter the ESF) and the CF for the period from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013.