Opinion No 12/2002

on the proposal for a Council regulation on a Financial Regulation applicable to the ninth European Development Fund under the ACP/EU Partnership Agreement signed at Cotonou on 23 June 2000

(pursuant to Article 248(4), second subparagraph, EC)

(2003/C 12/02)

CONTENTS

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THE COURT OF AUDITORS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 248(4) thereof,

Having regard to the Partnership Agreement between the ACP States and the European Community and its Member States, signed at Cotonou (Benin) on 23 June 2000, hereinafter called "the ACP-EC Agreement"(1),

Having regard to Council Decision 2001/822/EC of 27 November 2001 on the Association of the overseas countries and territories with the European Community, hereinafter called "the Overseas Association Decision"(2),

Having regard to the Internal Agreement between representatives of the Governments of the Member States, meeting within the Council, on the financing and administration of Community aid under the ACP-EC Agreement and the allocation of financial assistance for the overseas countries and territories to which part IV of the EC Treaty applies (hereinafter called "the Internal Agreement"), and in particular Article 31 thereof, which provides for consultation of the Court of Auditors(3),

Having regard to the Commission proposal of 11 June 2002(4),

Having regard to the Council's request for an opinion on that proposal, sent to the Court on 23 July 2002,

HAS ADOPTED THE FOLLOWING OPINION:

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS

Introduction

1. The Court notes that the time allowed for producing the opinion is very short. In fact, it must be possible for the Financial Regulation applicable to the ninth EDF to be adopted before the end of the year 2002, so that it can actually be implemented at the beginning of 2003. The Council has already reached an advanced stage in the legislative procedures for the adoption of this Regulation. For that reason the opinion has focused on essential matters of substance, without necessarily combining them with proposals for alternative text.

Relationship to the general Financial Regulation

2. The Court notes that the draft Financial Regulation has successfully included those changes made during the recasting of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget that could be applied in the EDF context. However, some of the changes made are meaningful only in the context of a budget-based system and are difficult to transpose to a fund-based system (see, for example, paragraphs 15(a), 15(c), 15(d) and 35). Conversely, some elements of the general Financial Regulation that should have been applied to the EDF are missing (see paragraphs 7, 8, 15(b) and 17 to 19).

3. Furthermore, the Court does not intend to return to the provisions that it found problematic when it gave its opinion on the recasting of the general Financial Regulation, which was not adequately taken into account. For example, although the Court recognises the importance of a harmonised approach to the drawing-up and auditing of the accounts, the unrealistic change to the timetable for the external audit of the accounts is still a problem.

Necessity of innovating so that the Financial Regulation is applicable to all subsequent EDFs

4. Hitherto every EDF has had a different Financial Regulation. This has had numerous disadvantages:

(a) although these regulations are very similar, they all vary in substance;

(b) it is not possible to implement an EDF until the corresponding Financial Regulation has been finalised;

(c) since several EDFs are being implemented simultaneously (one that is starting up, another in midstream and others that are coming to an end), several different Financial Regulations are in application at any one time, depending on the EDFs in question;

(d) given that the finance for some projects is provided with the assistance of two or even three EDFs, there is a possibility of conflict between the various sets of rules.

5. The Court suggests that the legislator innovate by adopting a single Financial Regulation applicable to all present and future EDFs, which, like the general Financial Regulation, would be amended whenever there was felt to be a need. A measure of this type would ensure continuity of approach, without the risk of interrupting implementation of the EDFs, and would greatly simplify management.

Need for the Financial Regulation to be straightforward, clear and immediately comprehensible

6. The introduction of a single Financial Regulation that applies to all the EDFs should be taken as the opportunity for producing clear, straightforward legislation concentrating on the provisions that are essential and necessary for implementation of the EDFs:

(a) the present proposal takes provisions of the Internal Agreement verbatim and quotes them for information purposes, thereby creating a risk of confusion if one text is modified and not the other (e.g. Article 6(3));

(b) furthermore it paraphrases some other provisions of the Internal Agreement, which gives rise to the aforementioned risk, with the additional risk of divergent interpretation because of the differences in the formulation of the two texts (e.g. Article 6(1)(b) and (2));

(c) lastly, it refers to concepts and procedures that are defined elsewhere, for example, in the ACP-EC Agreement or in Annex IV to that Agreement, thereby making immediate comprehension very difficult (e.g. Article 9(1));

(d) it would be preferable for the Financial Regulation to be confined to concepts and procedures that are essential for implementation of the EDFs; this would also give the Commission the possibility of consolidating in a single document the standards and decisions which at any given moment constitute the full legal framework governing implementation of the EDFs.

MAIN OBSERVATIONS

Principle of sound financial management

7. In order to improve decision-taking, Article 4 should provide for ex post as well as ex ante evaluations(5) of the programmes and operations undertaken, which should be in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Commission (in this respect see Article 3 of Annex IV to the ACP-EC Agreement and Article 27(4) of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget).

8. In order to prevent risk of fraud or irregularity the Commission should provide information on measures planned for that purpose when programmes and actions are adopted (see Article 28(3) of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget).

Composition and structure of EDF resources and allocations

9. Title II on resources covers resources (Article 6) and certain aspects of EDF expenditure (Article 7), without distinction. It would be preferable for either the title or the content to be reconsidered. The Court suggests as title "Composition and structure of EDF resources and expenditure" and suggests that, as regards content, there should be a structured definition of, on the one hand, the composition, breakdown and making available of EDF resources, and, on the other, the composition and breakdown of the "allocations" - a term which has still to be defined and which, in principle, corresponds to the broad categories of EDF expenditure authorisation.

Implementation of the EDF

10. Following on from Articles 11 and 32 of the Internal Agreement, Article 9 provides a breakdown of the main responsibilities for implementation of the EDF between the Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) by creating two separate areas of management, one for each of the two bodies. This thus creates, for the first time, a category of expenditure which, whilst it remains subject to audit by the Court (under the EIB-Court-Commission tripartite agreement provided for in Article 112 of this Regulation), is not subject to a discharge from the competent Community authorities (see paragraph 26).

11. Chapter 2 describes the different methods of implementation: centralised and decentralised. As regards the latter, Article 14(3) specifies, "the Commission shall implement clearance of account procedures or financial correction mechanisms enabling it to discharge its obligations under the ACP-EC Agreement". It is important for such essential provisions to be retained. Furthermore, they must be drafted and implemented in a way which ensures that they have maximum effectiveness. Under no circumstances must the breakdown of administrative responsibilities between the Community and the ACP partner States have the effect of exonerating the Commission of its responsibilities as regards economic, efficient, effective, legal and regular use of the resources at its disposal. In particular, the Commission must actually be able to recover amounts that have been unduly paid to national authorities or final beneficiaries.

12. In this respect, the statement in Chapter 3, Article 18(2), that, save where otherwise indicated, references to the authorising officer or to the authorising officer responsible or to the accounting officer shall be deemed to refer to the Commission's authorising officers or the Commission's accounting officer, confirms that the Financial Regulation for the ninth EDF does not apply directly to the national authorising officers or paying agents, the authorities in the ACP States that are the Community's partners. Similarly Articles 35 and 37, concerning the liability of authorising officers and accounting officers to pay compensation, do not apply to official bodies in the ACP States that are the Community's partners. As a consequence it is important for the Commission to ensure, by means of appropriate clearance of accounts procedures or financial correction mechanisms, that its partners respect the agreed standards applicable to operations financed by the EDF and thus give effective scope to Article 37(8) of Annex IV to the ACP-EC Agreement which specifies that "The paying agents, the national authorising officer, ... shall remain financially liable until the Commission gives final clearance for the operations for the execution of which they are responsible". It must be said that these clearance of accounts procedures and financial correction mechanisms are not adequately explained in the EDF implementing provisions as a whole.

13. As regards delegation of powers, the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice(6) has laid down that a discretionary power cannot be delegated and that the delegation may only involve clearly defined executive powers. This principle should be reiterated clearly in the text of the Financial Regulation:

(a) in Article 15(2) first subparagraph, the phrase "a large measure of discretion" should be deleted as the Commission may only entrust clearly defined executive powers to third parties and the executive powers may not contain any measure of discretion implying political choices;

(b) because of its general scope the first sentence of Article 15(4) should appear immediately after the first subparagraph of the present paragraph 2(7), and should read as follows, "The implementation tasks delegated must be clearly defined and fully supervised as to the use made of them";

(c) irrespective of the amount, a financing decision always involves the exercise of discretionary powers(8) and therefore cannot be the object of delegation. The second subparagraph of Article 15(2) of the proposed Financial Regulation should therefore be redrafted as follows: "The financing decisions provided for in Article 52(2) may never be delegated".

14. In the French text, Article 16 provides that the Commission may delegate to executive agencies "tout ou partie de la mise en oeuvre ... des ressources du FED" [translation: "power... to implement all or part of the EDF's resources"], which leaves some doubt as to whether a block delegation of the entire management of EDF resources might be possible, even though that would be contrary to the principles of the Meroni judgment mentioned above. The Court suggests aligning the French text with the English text and amending it thus, "... auxquelles peut être déléguée tout ou partie de la mise en oeuvre, pour le compte de la Commission et sous sa responsabilité, d'un programme ou projet communautaire, ..." [English text: "to which power may be delegated to implement all or part of a Community programme or project"]. This wording would also be more closely aligned with the proposed regulation concerning executive agencies, to which Article 16 of this Financial Regulation refers and which, at the present stage(9), provides that the delegation may only concern "specific individual projects" (Article 6(b)).

15. Articles 50 to 55 on the commitment of expenditure are inconsistent and have incorrectly taken provisions from the new general Financial Regulation regarding the implementation of "crédits budgétaires pluriannuels" [translation: "multiannual budgetary appropriations"]:

(a) for example, Articles 51(1), 53, 54(4), second and third subparagraphs, and 55(2), second subparagraph, use the concept of "appropriation", which is incorrect in the non-budgetary context of funds. In the EDF context a precise definition is necessary (see paragraph 2);

(b) Article 53 defines the role of the authorising officer responsible when adopting a financial commitment, but does not specify his/her role in relation to the corresponding legal commitment (and, in particular, checking that the commitment is covered by the corresponding financial commitment (see Article 78(2) of the general Financial Regulation, mutatis mutandis);

(c) Article 54(2), third subparagraph, takes a clause from the general Financial Regulation (adoption within three years - after financial commitment - of individual contracts and agreements) which is meaningless in the context of direct management by the Commission, given that a clause of this type is laid down in Article 55(4)(a) as regards decentralised management in the ACP States;

(d) the possibility of cancelling appropriations as provided in the second and third subparagraphs of Article 54(4) is meaningless in a fund system where the concept of "appropriation" does not exist and the cancellation of an allocation is difficult to imagine;

(e) in the French text of the third subparagraph of Article 54(4), delete the word "ensuite" which introduces a payment period of three years from the decommitment of the funds, which is incomprehensible. The second and third subparagraphs refer to different situations. The starting point for the three-year period mentioned in the third subparagraph has still to be specified;

(f) Articles 54(5) and 55(5) must be reviewed, in order to preserve the idea that the accounts must remain open as long as a transaction has not been finally cleared, but without introducing the idea that decommitment may be deferred even though there is available information that makes it possible to adjust (often, by reducing) the level of the corresponding Community obligation. It is important to avoid blocking funds unnecessarily when they could be used on other projects.

Internal auditor

16. It would be useful if Article 71(4) provided for the report summarising the number and type of internal audits carried out to be sent to the Court of Auditors every year.

Procurement

17. It might be advisable to include a chapter on "Guarantees and control", as provided in Article 103 of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget.

18. The Court suggests specifying that provisions on exclusion from tendering are laid down in the Council decision on the position to be adopted by the Community in the ACP-EC Council of Ministers regarding the implementation of Articles 28, 29 and 30 of Annex IV to the Cotonou Agreement(10).

19. In order to improve the award procedures there should be provision for the compilation of a central database containing details of candidates and tenderers (see Article 95 of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget). It is also important to make provision for the contracting authority to have the possibility of abandoning the procurement or cancelling the award procedure, before the contract is signed, without the candidates or tenderers being entitled to claim any compensation (see Article 101 of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget).

Direct labour operations

20. The Court notes that the provisions which it is proposed to introduce in Article 80(3) provide for "externalised direct labour operations" (an increasingly widespread form of management) the legal foundation which they lacked.

Presentation of the accounts

21. In Articles 102, 125 and 135, the dates which affect the Court's work are not aligned with the corresponding dates in the general Financial Regulation:

(a) in Article 102, there is a difference of one month between the date for sending the report on the financial management and that for sending the provisional accounts which the report is supposed to accompany under Article 96(2). The report should be sent with the provisional accounts on 31 March;

(b) in Article 125, the sending of the report on the financial management of the resources managed by the EIB gives rise to a similar observation: the report should be sent to the Commission not later than 28 February;

(c) in Article 135, the deadlines to be respected during the transitional period for sending the financial management reports mentioned in the preceding paragraphs should be aligned with those of the general Financial Regulation, namely without any delay between them and the presentation of the provisional accounts which they accompany;

(d) Article 135(a) should read "30 April for Article 102";

(e) Article 135(g) should read "31 March and 15 September for Article 125".

Audit of the accounts

22. The Court proposes the following amendments to Article 115:

(a) in Article 115(1) insert "the Treaty establishing the European Community" before "the ACP-EC Agreement". The Treaty is, in fact, the legal base for the Overseas Association Decision(11), as well as for the Financial Regulation of the ninth EDF itself(12). It might also be advisable to mention "the Internal Agreement", which also constitutes the legal base for the Financial Regulation for the ninth EDF (see its fourth citation);

(b) the Cotonou Agreement provides that various intermediaries (national authorising officers, paying agents, etc) may be involved in the management of the EDF's resources. Articles 52(4) and 94(2) of this Financial Regulation provide for the Court to exercise its powers of control over recipients of financing or financial assistance from EDF resources. The first subparagraph of Article 115(5) should therefore be amended(13) as follows: "The Commission, bodies other than the Bank which manage EDF resources and beneficiaries of financing or financial assistance from EDF resources shall afford the Court of Auditors ..." and the final subparagraph should read: "... which are held by the responsible departments of the Commission, bodies other than the Bank which manage EDF resources and the natural or legal persons who are beneficiaries of financing or financial assistance from EDF resources";

(c) in paragraph (6) specify that "the task of establishing ..." concerns not only "EDF resources received", but those that have been "managed" as well;

(d) in the context of decentralisation, it might be useful to lay down in Article 115 an additional paragraph in favour of participation by the national audit authorities of beneficiary countries in the audit of national cofinancing funds.

Specific provisions concerning EDF resources managed by the EIB

23. In Article 125 it is important that the accounts of the investment facility, like those of the interest subsidies, provide a trail for the full circuit of the funds, from receipt to disbursement and then to the revenue to which they give rise and any subsequent recoveries. At all events these data must, when the EDF accounts provided for in Article 96 are presented, give a consolidated view of the management as a whole. Articles 125 and 96 must be very explicit on these points.

24. In Article 126, "the EIB's own rules" should not be restrictive: the rules should be applied with due regard to the general rules governing management of the EDF, and in particular the Partnership Agreement with the ACP States, the Internal Agreement and the Financial Regulation(14).

25. In Article 129(2) specify, "The balances remaining from previous EDFs shall be used to finance new projects, programmes ..." in order to avoid any possibility of remaining balances being used to help out projects that are in difficulties.

Discharge

26. As stated in paragraph 10, the Articles relating to the discharge, and Article 119(2) in particular, limit to the management by the Commission the scope of the discharge from Parliament. The Court regrets that, under the Internal Agreement (Article 32(3) and (5)), the operations managed by the EIB are not subject to a discharge procedure that involves the Council and Parliament, even though the operations are conducted by the Bank on behalf of and at the risk of the Community (Article 11(2) of the Internal Agreement), on the basis of EDF resources. The Court notes that, in the beginning, these funds were contributed by European taxpayers, not by the financial market.

Duration of the ninth EDF

27. The provision contained in Article 136(2) paraphrases Article 2(4) of the Internal Agreement and should be clarified. It says, in fact, "Before the expiry of the ninth EDF, the Member States shall set a date beyond which the funds of the EDF may no longer be committed".

28. The higher-level texts, namely the ACP-EC Agreement, the Financial Protocol annexed thereto, as well as the Internal Agreement, set a duration of five years for the EDFs (and the ninth EDF in particular) reckoned from 1 March 2000 (Article 95 of the Agreement; paragraph 1 of the Financial Protocol; Article 35(3) of the Internal Agreement). The Financial Protocol (paragraph 5) and the Internal Agreement (Article 1(2)(c)) also state that the overall amount of the present Financial Protocol supplemented by the remaining balances from previous EDFs shall cover the period 2000 to 2007. Strictly speaking, the EDF therefore has a duration of five years. In practice, its duration has apparently been extended to seven years. Furthermore a number of provisions specify that, once committed, operations shall be implemented and shall give rise to payments in subsequent years.

29. In this context, at least two interpretations of Article 136(2) appear possible:

- first interpretation: before 1 March 2005, the formal date for the expiry of the ninth EDF, the Member States fix a date after which the funds of the EDFs may no longer be committed. The date in question may not be later than 31 December 2007, the maximum period of effect for the ninth EDF as laid down in paragraph 5 of the Financial Protocol,

- second interpretation: before 31 December 2007, the date on which the ninth EDF expires in practice as a result of paragraph 5 of the Financial Protocol, the Member States fix a date (in 2008, 2009, or even much later) after which the funds of the ninth EDF may no longer be committed.

30. Other interpretations also seem possible. It is therefore important for Article 136 to be drafted in a way which removes any ambiguity.

TECHNICAL OBSERVATIONS

Structure of the Financial Regulation

31. Article 9 should be at the very beginning of the Financial Regulation, before the title "PART ONE". It is, in fact, very general in nature. Inserting it as the first provision of the Financial Regulation applicable to the ninth EDF would enable the reader to realise immediately that the whole of the first part (Articles 1 to 120) only applies to the EDF resources managed by the Commission and the second part (Articles 121 to 128) to the EDF resources managed by the EIB (Article 9(3)). It would also avoid the need for repetition of this information (Article 40). The Court notes, however, that some of the provisions in the first part may also concern the EIB (for example, Article 96 on the drawing-up of the EDF's accounts).

32. In Article 41, the second subparagraph of paragraph 3 and the third subparagraph of paragraph 4 have no place in the first part of the Financial Regulation, which only concerns operations managed by the Commission. The second subparagraph of paragraph 3 already appears correctly in Article 122(1) and may, therefore, be deleted; the third subparagraph of paragraph 4 should be moved to Article 122.

Terminology

33. Title III is incorrectly titled "Implementation of EDF resources", taking terminology from the ACP-EC Agreement and the Internal Agreement. A better title would be "Implementation of the EDF". In fact, Title III is essentially concerned with expenditure.

34. Chapter 6 on expenditure concerns not only the commitment, but also the validation, authorisation and payment of expenditure. Article 49(2) should be amended thus, "The decisions and procedures for commitment, validation, authorisation and payment of expenditure ...".

35. In several Articles(15), the use of the term "appropriation" has been taken direct from the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget and is inappropriate in the context of a fund.

36. There is no definition of the term "allocations" in this Financial Regulation (see paragraph 9).

37. In several Articles(16), the English text refers to the "financial year". Since the principle of annuality as such does not apply to the EDF, it would be better to define "financial year"(17) following the model for the general budget (see Article 272 EC). This could be done by adding in Article 8(1) the sentence, "The financial year shall run from 1 January to 31 December".

38. There are no implementing rules for the EDF Financial Regulation. In Article 35 the phrase "to comply with the Financial Regulation and the rules for its implementation" should be replaced by "to comply with this Regulation and the rules for the implementation of the general Financial Regulation, where applicable"(18). In the English text, "comply with the Financial Regulation" should be replaced by "comply with this Regulation".

39. In the French text of Article 51(4)(f) it would be preferable for the English term "freelance" to be replaced by the French term "indépendants".

40. In Article 79(3), replace "at the earliest opportunity" by "within 15 days".

41. In the French text of Article 81(e), "fonctions d'ordonnateur et de comptable" should be used in preference to "fonctions d'ordonnancement et de paiement" (see Articles 58 and 61 of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget).

42. In Article 86(2) omit the word "budgetary", which is out of place in the Financial Regulation for the EDF.

43. Presenting the EDF accounts is ultimately the Commission's responsibility and in Article 96 the expression "The Commission shall draw up" should preferably be replaced by "The Commission shall approve" and, in Articles 100 and 101 of the French text, "sont établis par le comptable" should be replaced by "sont préparés par le comptable".

44. In Article 124, replace the word "regularly", which is imprecise, by "quarterly".

Concepts of principal authorising officer and national authorising officer

45. Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 19 are apparently redundant and should be deleted since the concept of chief authorising officer appointed by the Commission is the subject of paragraphs 3 et seq. of Article 19 and that of the national authorising officer appointed by each ACP State is in Article 35 of Annex IV to the Cotonou Agreement.

"Passed for payment" voucher

46. The "passed for payment" voucher referred to in Article 57(3) should not only be signed by the authorising officer responsible, it should be dated as well.

Authorisation and payment of expenditure

47. The following technical comments relate to Articles 60 to 68, which concern authorisation and payment of expenditure:

(a) in Article 61(b), the authorising officer must, logically speaking, ensure that the payment order corresponds to the "legal commitment" and not the "financial commitment";

(b) in Article 62 add a subparagraph stating "the supporting documents examined";

(c) in Article 62(d) and (e), there is no need to introduce these references to the financial commitment, since the references to the legal commitment are sufficient (delete (d) and modify (e));

(d) in the French text of Article 64(1) replace "démonstration" by "preuves";

(e) in Article 64, paragraphs 3 and 4 are not clear because of the use of the word "count". Presumably the idea is that the nature of any pre-financing changes when it is followed by an interim payment and the accounting description then changes to interim payment, in the same way that the description of an interim payment that is followed by the payment of a balance changes to payment of balance;

(f) in the second paragraph of Article 66 preferably specify that the joint signature rule applies to all forms of "bank payments" and that one of the signatures must be that of the "competent accounting officer" and not that of the EDF "accounting officer", which would make the procedure unnecessarily cumbersome.

Grants

48. In Article 90(3) specify a deadline for replies to grant applications.

49. In Article 94(2) omit "including" as OLAF is operationally independent of the Commission.

Audit of the accounts

50. In Article 111(2) it would be useful for the chart of accounts sent to the Court of Auditors to be accompanied by the applicable accounting rules and methods provided for in paragraph 1.

51. In Article 113 replace the phrase "as soon as possible" by "within not more than 15 working days".

This opinion was adopted by the Court of Auditors in Luxembourg the 15 October 2002.

For the Court of Auditors

Juan Manuel Fabra Vallés

President

(1) OJ L 317, 15.12.2000, p. 3.

(2) OJ L 314, 30.11.2001, p. 1 and OJ L 324, 7.12.2001, p. 1.

(3) OJ L 317, 15.12.2000, p. 355.

(4) COM(2002) 290 final of 11 June 2002.

(5) In the French text, the phrase "appréciation ex ante" must, in any case, be replaced by "évaluation ex ante".

(6) Judgment of the Court of Justice of 13 June 1958, Case 9/56 Meroni v High Authority.

(7) Following the model of Article 54(1) of the Financial Regulation of 25 June 2002 applicable to the general budget (OJ L 248, 16.9.2002, p. 1).

(8) The discretionary nature of the powers can be seen particularly in Article 16 of Annex IV to the Cotonou Agreement: the taking of a financing decision involves a dialogue with the ACP States concerned (paragraphs 2 and 3) and with the ACP-EC Committee (paragraph 5(a)) as well as a dialogue with the EDF Committee (Article 21(1) and (2) of the Internal Agreement), which implies that there is the possibility of adopting, amending or rejecting the initial proposal (paragraph 6).

(9) Amended proposal for a Council regulation laying down the statute for executive agencies to be entrusted with certain tasks in the management of Community programmes (COM(2001) 808 final - CNS 2000/0337 (OJ C 103 E, 30.4.2002, p. 253)).

(10) COM(2002) 183 final, of 12 April 2002.

(11) See footnote 2 on page 2.

(12) See the first citation of the proposal to which this opinion relates.

(13) On the model of Article 142 of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget.

(14) As provided in Article 11(2) of the Internal Agreement.

(15) See Article 6(2), Article 51(1), Article 53(b), Article 54(4) second and third subparagraphs, Article 55(2), second subparagraph, and Article 61(d).

(16) See Article 8(1), (3)(a) and (4), Article 39(1), third subparagraph, Article 54(4), first subparagraph, Article 86(2), Article 96(2)(a) and (b), Article 99(1), Article 100(1)(b) and (c)(i), (ii), (iii), (v), Article 101(2)(a), (b) and (c), Article 105(2) and (3), Article 109, Article 110(1)(d) and (5), Article 116(1), Article 119(3), Article 125(2), second subparagraph, and Article 135(1) and (2).

(17) There is no such definition in the Cotonou Agreement or the Internal Agreement, although they both refer to "the financial year" (see in particular Article 10(1) of the Internal Agreement).

(18) They apply particularly in the cases referred to in Articles 36(3) 48(2), 58 and 72 of the Financial Regulation applicable to the ninth EDF.