1.In the case of the payment of the final balance, the deadline set down in Article 166 of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 shall apply and the minimum requirements referred to in Article 41 are the following:
(a)the national authorising officer has sent to the Commission a final payment application and a final statement of expenditure; the final statement of expenditure shall be certified by the national authorising officer;
(b)the operating structure has sent to the Commission the sectoral final reports for the programme concerned, as referred to in Article 61(1);
(c)the audit authority has sent to the Commission, in accordance with the third indent of Article 29(2)(b), an opinion on any final statement of expenditure, supported by a final activity report;
(d)the accreditations delivered by the competent accrediting officer and the national authorising officer are in force and the conferral of management by the Commission remains valid.
2.That part of budget commitments referring to multi-annual programmes still open on 31 December 2017, for which the documents referred to in paragraph 1 have not been transmitted to the Commission by 31 December 2018, shall be automatically de-committed.