Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council (repealed)Show full title

TITLE III U.K. ESTABLISHMENT AND STRUCTURE OF THE BUDGET

CHAPTER 1 U.K. Establishment of the budget

Article 36 U.K. Estimates of revenue and expenditure

1. Each institution other than the Commission shall draw up an estimate of its revenue and expenditure, which it shall send to the Commission, and in parallel, for information, to the European Parliament and the Council, before 1 July each year.

2. The High Representative shall hold consultations with the Members of the Commission responsible for development policy, neighbourhood policy and international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, regarding their respective responsibilities.

3. The Commission shall draw up its own estimates, which it shall also send, directly after their adoption, to the European Parliament and the Council.

In preparing its estimates, the Commission shall use the information referred to in Article 37.

Article 37 U.K. Estimated budget of the bodies referred to in Article 208

By 31 March each year, each body referred to in Article 208 shall, in accordance with the instrument establishing it, send the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council an estimate of its revenue and expenditure, including its establishment plan, and its draft work programme.

Article 38 U.K. Draft budget

1. The Commission shall submit a proposal containing the draft budget to the European Parliament and the Council by 1 September of the year preceding that in which the budget is to be implemented. It shall transmit that proposal, for information, also to the national parliaments.

The draft budget shall contain a summary general statement of the revenue and expenditure of the Union and shall consolidate the estimates referred to in Article 36. It may also contain different estimates from those drawn up by the institutions.

The draft budget shall follow the structure and presentation set out in Articles 44 to 49.

Each section of the draft budget shall be preceded by an introduction drawn up by the institution concerned.

The Commission shall draw up the general introduction to the draft budget. The general introduction shall comprise financial tables covering the main data by titles and justifications for the changes in the appropriations from one financial year to the next by categories of expenditure of the multiannual financial framework.

2. In order to provide more precise and reliable forecasts of the budgetary implications of legislation in force and of pending legislative proposals, the Commission shall attach to the draft budget a financial programming for the following years.

The financial programming shall be updated after the adoption of the budget, to incorporate the results of the budgetary procedure and any other relevant decisions.

The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 210 concerning detailed rules on financial programming.

3. The Commission shall attach to the draft budget:

(a) where appropriate, the reasons for which the draft budget contains different estimates from those drawn up by other institutions;

(b) any working document it considers useful in connection with the establishment plans of the institutions and the contributions which the Commission awards to the bodies referred to in Article 208 and to the European Schools. Any such working document, showing the latest authorised establishment plan, shall present:

(i)

all staff employed by the Union, including its legally separate entities, displayed by type of contract,

(ii)

a statement of the policy on posts and external personnel and on gender balance,

(iii)

the number of posts actually filled at the beginning of the year in which the draft budget is presented, indicating their distribution by grade and administrative unit,

(iv)

a list of posts broken down per policy area,

(v)

for each category of external staff, the initial estimated number of full-time equivalents on the basis of the authorised appropriations, as well as the number of persons actually in place at the beginning of the year in which the draft budget is presented, indicating their distribution by function group and, as appropriate, by grade.

(c) a working document on the planned implementation of appropriations for the financial year and on commitments outstanding, on the bodies referred to in Article 208 and the European Schools, and on the pilot projects and preparatory actions;

(d) as regards funding to international organisations, a working document containing:

(i)

a summary of all contributions, with a breakdown per Union programme or fund and per international organisation,

(ii)

a statement of reasons explaining why it was more efficient for the Union to fund those international organisations rather than to act directly;

(e) activity statements or any other relevant document containing the following:

(i)

information on the achievement of all previously set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timed objectives for the various activities, as well as new objectives measured by indicators,

(ii)

a full justification, including a cost-benefit analysis for proposed changes in the level of appropriations,

(iii)

a clear rationale for intervention at Union level in accordance, inter alia, with the principle of subsidiarity,

(iv)

information on the implementation rates of the preceding year's activity and implementation rates for the current year,

(v)

a summary of evaluation results when relevant to budget changes,

(vi)

information on prizes with a unit value of EUR 1 000 000 or more;

(f) a summary statement of the schedule of payments due in subsequent financial years to meet budgetary commitments entered into in previous financial years.

4. Where the Commission entrusts budget implementation to public-private partnerships (PPPs), it shall attach to the draft budget a working document presenting:

(a) an annual report on the performance of existing PPPs in the preceding financial year, including information on the legal form and the shareholders of entities entrusted pursuant to point (vii) of Article 58(1)(c);

(b) the targets set for the financial year to which the draft budget relates, indicating any specific budgetary needs dedicated to achieving this target;

(c) the administrative costs and the implemented budget in total and per body referred to in Article 209 and per PPP in the preceding financial year;

(d) the amount of financial contributions made from the budget, the amount of financial contributions and the value of contributions in kind made by the other partners for each PPP;

However, where PPPs make use of financial instruments, the information relating to those instruments shall be included in the working document referred to in paragraph 5.

5. Where the Commission makes use of financial instruments, it shall attach to the draft budget a working document presenting the following:

(a) the aggregate budgetary commitments and payments from the budget for each financial instrument;

(b) revenues and repayments under Article 140(6), and accrual for additional resources for the financial year;

(c) the total amount of provisions for risks and liabilities, as well as any information on the financial risk exposure of the Union;

(d) impairments of assets of equity or risk-sharing instruments, and called guarantees for guarantee instruments, both for the preceding year and the respective accumulated figures;

(e) the average duration between the budgetary commitment to the financial instruments and the legal commitments for individual projects in the form of equity or debt, where their duration exceeds three years. The Commission shall, in the report provided for under Article 140(8), explain the reasons and provide, where appropriate, an action plan for the reduction of the duration in the framework of the annual discharge procedure;

(f) the administrative expenditure arising from management fees and other financial and operating charges paid for the management of financial instruments, where that management has been entrusted to third parties, in total and per managing party and per financial instrument managed.

6. The Commission shall also attach to the draft budget any further working document it considers useful to support its budget requests.

7. In accordance with Article 8(5) of Council Decision 2010/427/EU of 26 July 2010 establishing the organisation and functioning of the European External Action Service(1) and in order to ensure budgetary transparency in the area of external action of the Union, the Commission shall transmit to the European Parliament and the Council, together with the draft budget, a working document presenting, in a comprehensive way:

(a) all administrative and operational expenditure relating to the external actions of the Union, including Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy tasks, and financed from the budget;

(b) the EEAS' overall administrative expenditure for the preceding year, broken down into expenditure per Union delegation and expenditure for the EEAS' central administration; together with operational expenditure, broken down by geographic area (regions, countries), thematic areas, Union Delegation and mission.

8. The working document referred to in paragraph 7 shall also:

(a) show the number of posts for each grade in each category and the number of permanent and temporary posts, including contractual and local staff authorised within the limits of the appropriations in each Union Delegation, as well as in the central administration of the EEAS;

(b) show any increase or reduction of posts by grade and category in the central administration of the EEAS, and in all Union Delegations based on the preceding financial year;

(c) show the number of posts authorised for the financial year, the number of posts authorised for the preceding year, as well as the number of posts occupied by diplomats seconded from the Member States, and Council and Commission staff;

(d) provide a detailed picture of all staff in place in Union Delegations at the time of presenting the draft budget, including a breakdown by geographic area, gender, individual country and mission, distinguishing establishment plan posts, contract agents, local agents and seconded national experts and appropriations requested in the draft budget for such other types of personnel with corresponding estimates of the equivalent full-time staff that may be employed within the limits of the appropriations requested.

Article 39 U.K. Letter of amendment to the draft budget

On the basis of any new information which was not available at the time the draft budget was established, the Commission may, on its own initiative or if requested by one of the other institutions in respect of its respective section, submit simultaneously to the European Parliament and the Council letters of amendment to the draft budget before the Conciliation Committee referred to in Article 314 TFEU is convened. The letters may include a letter of amendment updating, in particular, expenditure estimates for agriculture.

Article 40 U.K. Obligations of the Member States stemming from the adoption of the budget

1. The President of the European Parliament shall declare the budget definitively adopted in accordance with the procedure provided for in Article 314(9) TFEU and Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty.

2. Once the budget has been declared definitively adopted, each Member State shall, from 1 January of the following financial year or from the date of the declaration of definitive adoption of the budget if this occurs after 1 January, be bound to make the payments due to the Union, as specified in Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1150/2000.

Article 41 U.K. Draft amending budgets

1. The Commission may present draft amending budgets which are primarily revenue-driven in the following circumstances:

• to enter in the budget the balance of the preceding financial year, in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 18,

• to revise the forecast of own resources on the basis of updated economic forecasts, and

• to update the revised forecast of own resources and other revenue, as well as to review the availability of, and need for, payment appropriations.

If there are unavoidable, exceptional and unforeseen circumstances, in particular in view of the mobilisation of the European Union Solidarity Fund, the Commission may present draft amending budgets which are primarily expenditure-driven.

2. Requests for amending budgets, in the same circumstances as referred to in paragraph 1, from institutions other than the Commission shall be sent to the Commission.

Before presenting a draft amending budget, the Commission and the other institutions shall examine the scope for reallocation of the relevant appropriations, with particular reference to any expected under-implementation of appropriations.

Article 40 shall apply to amending budgets. Amending budgets shall be substantiated by reference to the budget the estimates of which they are amending.

3. The Commission shall, except in duly justified exceptional circumstances or in the case of the mobilisation of the European Union Solidarity Fund for which a draft amending budget can be presented at any time of the year, submit its draft amending budgets simultaneously to the European Parliament and the Council by 1 September of each financial year. It may attach an opinion to the requests for amending budgets from the other institutions.

4. The European Parliament and the Council shall discuss the draft amending budgets while having due regard to their urgency.

5. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 210 concerning detailed rules on draft amending budgets.

Article 42 U.K. Early transmission of estimates and draft budgets

The Commission, the European Parliament and the Council may agree to bring forward certain dates for the transmission of the estimates, and for the adoption and transmission of the draft budget. Such an arrangement may not, however, have the effect of shortening or extending the periods for which provision is made for consideration of those texts under Article 314 TFEU and Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty.

CHAPTER 2 U.K. Structure and presentation of the budget

Article 43 U.K. Structure of the budget

The budget shall consist of the following:

(a)

a general statement of revenue and expenditure;

(b)

separate sections for each institution, with the exception of the European Council and the Council which shall share the same section, subdivided into statements of revenue and expenditure.

Article 44 U.K. Budget nomenclature

1. Commission revenue and the revenue and expenditure of the other institutions shall be classified by the European Parliament and the Council according to their type or the use to which they are assigned under titles, chapters, articles and items.

2. The statement of expenditure for the Commission section shall be set out on the basis of a nomenclature adopted by the European Parliament and the Council and classified according to purpose.

Each title shall correspond to a policy area and each chapter shall, as a rule, correspond to an activity.

Each title may include operational appropriations and administrative appropriations.

The administrative appropriations for a title shall be grouped in a single chapter.

3. When presented by purpose, administrative appropriations for individual titles shall be classified as follows:

(a) expenditure on staff authorised in the establishment plan: there shall be an amount of appropriations and a number establishment plan posts corresponding to that expenditure;

(b) expenditure on external personnel and other expenditure referred to in point (b) of the first subparagraph of Article 26(1) and financed under the "administration" heading of the multiannual financial framework;

(c) expenditure on buildings and other related expenditure, including cleaning and maintenance, rental and hiring, telecommunications, water, gas and electricity;

(d) external personnel and technical assistance directly linked to the implementation of programmes.

Any administrative expenditure of the Commission of a type which is common to several titles shall be set out in a separate summary statement classified by type.

4. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 210 concerning detailed rules on the classification of the budget.

Article 45 U.K. Prohibition of negative revenue

1. The budget shall not contain negative revenue.

2. The own resources paid under Council Decision 2007/436/EC, Euratom, of 7 June 2007 on the system of the European Communities' own resources(2) shall be net amounts and shall be shown as such in the summary statement of revenue in the budget.

Article 46 U.K. Provisions

1. Each section of the budget may include a "provisions" title. Appropriations shall be entered in that title where:

(a) no basic act exists for the action concerned when the budget is established; or

(b) there are serious grounds for doubting the adequacy of the appropriations or the possibility of implementing, under conditions in accordance with the principle of sound financial management, the appropriations entered on the lines concerned.

The appropriations in that title may be used only after transfer in accordance with the procedure laid down in point (c) of the first subparagraph of Article 26(1) of this Regulation, where the adoption of the basic act is subject to the procedure laid down in Article 294 TFEU, and in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 27 of this Regulation, for all other cases.

2. In the event of serious implementation difficulties, the Commission may propose, in the course of a financial year, that appropriations be transferred to the "provisions" title. The European Parliament and the Council shall take a decision on such transfers as provided for in Article 27.

Article 47 U.K. Negative reserve

The Commission section of the budget may include a "negative reserve" limited to a maximum amount of EUR 200 000 000. Such a reserve, which shall be entered in a separate title, shall comprise payment appropriations only.

That negative reserve shall be drawn upon before the end of the financial year by means of transfer in accordance with the procedure laid down in Articles 26 and 27.

Article 48 U.K. Emergency Aid Reserve

1. The Commission section of the budget shall include a reserve for emergency aid for third countries.

2. The reserve referred to in paragraph 1 shall be drawn upon before the end of the financial year by means of transfer in accordance with the procedure laid down in Articles 27 and 29.

Article 49 U.K. Presentation of the budget

1. The budget shall show:

(a) in the general statement of revenue and expenditure:

(i)

the estimated revenue of the Union for the financial year concerned ('year n');

(ii)

the estimated revenue for the preceding financial year and the revenue for year n – 2;

(iii)

the commitment and payment appropriations for year n;

(iv)

the commitment and payment appropriations for the preceding financial year;

(v)

the expenditure committed and the expenditure paid in year n – 2, the latter also expressed as a percentage of the budget of year n;

(vi)

appropriate remarks on each subdivision, as set out in Article 44(1);

(b) in each section, the revenue and expenditure in the same structure as in point (a);

(c) with regard to staff:

(i)

for each section, an establishment plan setting the number of posts for each grade in each category and in each service and the number of permanent and temporary posts authorised within the limits of the appropriations;

(ii)

an establishment plan for staff paid from the research and technological development appropriations for direct action and an establishment plan for staff paid from the same appropriations for indirect action; the establishment plans shall be classified by category and grade and shall distinguish between permanent and temporary posts, authorised within the limits of the appropriations;

(iii)

as regards scientific and technical staff, the classification may be based on groups of grades, in accordance with the conditions laid down in each budget; the establishment plan shall specify the number of highly qualified scientific or technical personnel who are accorded special advantages under the specific provisions of the Staff Regulations;

(iv)

an establishment plan setting the number of posts by grade and by category for each body referred to in Article 208 which receives a contribution charged to the budget. The establishment plans shall show, next to the number of posts authorised for the financial year, the number authorised for the preceding year;

(d) with regard to borrowing-and-lending operations:

(i)

in the general statement of revenue, the budget lines corresponding to the relevant operations and intended to record any reimbursements received from recipients who initially defaulted, leading to activation of the performance guarantee. Those lines shall carry a token entry "pro memoria" and be accompanied by appropriate remarks;

(ii)

in the Commission section:

• the budget lines containing the Union's performance guarantees in respect of the operations concerned. Those lines shall carry a token entry "pro memoria", provided that no effective charge which has to be covered by definitive resources has arisen,

• remarks giving the reference to the basic act and the volume of the operations envisaged, the duration and the financial guarantee given by the Union in respect of such operations,

(iii)

in a document annexed to the Commission section, as an indication:

• ongoing capital operations and debt management,

• the capital operations and debt management for year n;

(e) with regard to financial instruments under Title VIII of Part One:

(i)

a reference to the basic act;

(ii)

budget lines corresponding to the relevant operations;

(iii)

a general description of the financial instruments, including their duration and their impact on the budget;

(iv)

the envisaged operations, including target volumes based on the leverage effect arising from the existing financial instruments;

(f) with regard to the funding to entities entrusted pursuant to point (vii) of Article 58(1)(c):

(i)

a reference to the basic act of the relevant programme;

(ii)

corresponding budget lines;

(iii)

a general description of the tasks entrusted, including their duration and their impact on the budget;

(g) the total amount of CFSP expenditure entered in a chapter, entitled 'CFSP', with specific articles. Those articles shall cover CFSP expenditure and shall contain specific lines identifying at least the single major missions.

2. In addition to the documents referred to in paragraph 1, the European Parliament and the Council may attach any other relevant documents to the budget.

3. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 210 concerning the presentation of the budget, including a definition of actual expenditure in the last financial year for which the accounts have been closed, budget remarks and the establishment plans.

Article 50 U.K. Rules on the establishment plans for staff

1. The establishment plans described in point (c) of Article 49(1) shall constitute an absolute limit for each institution or body; no appointment may be made in excess of the limit set.

However, save in the case of grades AD 16, AD 15 and AD 14, each institution or body may modify its establishment plans by up to 10 % of posts authorised, subject to the following conditions:

(a) the volume of staff appropriations corresponding to a full financial year is not affected;

(b) the limit of the total number of posts authorised by each establishment plan is not exceeded; and

(c) the institution or body has taken part in a benchmarking exercise with other institutions and bodies of the Union as initiated by the Commission's staff screening exercise.

Three weeks before making the modifications referred to in the second subparagraph, the institution shall inform the European Parliament and the Council of its intention to do so. In the event that duly justified reasons are raised within this period by either the European Parliament or the Council, the institution shall refrain from making the modifications and the procedure referred to in Article 41 shall apply.

2. By way of derogation from the first subparagraph of paragraph 1, the effects of part-time work authorised by the appointing authority in accordance with the Staff Regulations may be offset by other appointments.

CHAPTER 3 U.K. Budgetary discipline

Article 51 U.K. Compliance with the multiannual financial framework

The budget shall comply with the multiannual financial framework.

Article 52 U.K. Compliance of Union acts with the budget

Where the implementation of a Union act exceeds the appropriations available in the budget, such an act may be implemented in financial terms only after the budget has been amended accordingly.

(1)

OJ L 201, 3.8.2010, p. 30.

(2)

OJ L 163, 23.6.2007, p. 17.