Interim payments shall be made for each operational programme. The first interim payment shall be made in accordance with Article 71(2).
1.Each interim payment made by the Commission shall be subject to the following conditions being met:
(a)the Commission must have been sent a application for payment and a statement of expenditure in accordance with Article 78;
(b)no more than the maximum amount of assistance from the Funds as laid down in the decision of the Commission approving the operational programme has been paid by the Commission during the whole period for each priority axis;
(c)the managing authority must have sent the Commission the most recent annual implementation report in accordance with Article 67(1) and (3);
(d)there is no reasoned opinion by the Commission in respect of an infringement under Article 226 of the Treaty as regards the operation(s) for which the expenditure is declared in the application for payment in question.
2.If one or more of the conditions referred to in paragraph 1 are not met, the Member State and the certifying authority shall be informed by the Commission within a period of one month so that the necessary steps can be taken to remedy the situation.
1.The certifying authority shall satisfy itself that requests for interim payments for each operational programme are grouped together and sent to the Commission, as far as possible, on three separate occasions a year. For a payment to be made by the Commission in the current year, the latest date on which a application for payment shall be submitted is 31 October.
2.Subject to available funding, and the absence of a suspension of payments in accordance with Article 92, the Commission shall make the interim payment no later than two months after the date on which a application for payment meeting the conditions referred to in Article 86 is registered with the Commission.