Kiri

Ref. Ares(2023)6701286 - 03/10/2023 EUROPEAN COMMISSION DIRECTORATE-GENERAL REGIONAL AND URBAN POLICY European Territorial Cooperation, Macro-regions, Interreg and Programme Implementation I Interreg, Cross-Border Cooperation, Internal Borders Brussels REGIO.D.2/MAD Dear Ms Ello, Subject: Project level irregularities and deductions Y.Ref: 13.09.2023 no 11.1-13/23/2998-1 O.Ref: ARES(2023)6392713 – 21.09.2023 The Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) has received your letter of 13 September 2023 in which you request from the European Commission legal certainty on the approach of public procurement irregularities that are discovered before certification. You explain that the controller discovered a breach of public procurement rules during the management verifications of an operation and that the related ineligible expenditure was not certified neither at Programme level nor to the European Commission. You ask the Commission if (option 1) the beneficiary can reuse the amount of ineligible expenditure of this specific procurement to support other activities of the same operation or if (option 2) the Managing Authority should deduct the support (e.g., in a form of financial correction), decrease the operation budget and ensure that the support cannot be re-used for the same operation but that the funds would become available for other operations at Programme level. The Commission confirms its previous interpretation sent to you in 2017/18 following consultations and considers that option 1 should apply when the deductions are made by the managing authority before including expenditure in a payment application to the Commission. In that case, the deduction is not a financial correction within the meaning of Article 143(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 and Article 103 of Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 and therefore the resources can be reused to support other activities of the same operation. Only in case of financial correction within the meaning of these Articles, i.e. a cancellation of part or the entire public contribution to an operation, the reuse of funds in the same operation is not possible. However, please note that only the Court of Justice is competent to interpret EU law and provide legal assurance. Yours sincerely, Electronically signed in ARES Jean-Pierre HALKIN Head of Unit Ms Ege ELLO Head of the Managing Authority Interreg VI-A Estonia-Latvia Grants Development Department State Shared Service Centre Republic of Estonia Commission européenne/Europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË – Tel. +32 22991111 Office: [email protected] - Tel. direct line +32 229-95294 - Electronically signed on 03/10/2023 16:00 (UTC+02) in accordance with Article 11 of Commission Decision (EU) 2021/2121