Analysis of the. budgetary implementation of the European Structural and Investment Funds in Budget

Transcription

1 Analysis of the budgetary implementation of the European Structural and Investment Funds in 2015 Budget May 2016

2 Cover image: kubais - Fotolia

3 EUROPEAN COMMISSION DIRECTORATE-GENERAL BUDGET Analysis of the budgetary implementation of the European Structural and Investment Funds in 2015 May 2016

4 NOTE: THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS COMMISSION STAFF WORKING PAPER (DG BUDGET) IS WITHOUT PREJUDICE TO THE CONTENT OF THE OFFICIAL COMMISSION REPORTS ON THE CLOSURE OF THE ACCOUNTS AND ON THE STRUCTURAL AND COHESION FUNDS. READERS SHOULD REFER IN PARTICULAR TO THE REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE OFFICIAL FIGURES ON THE 2015 BUDGET OUTTURN

5 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AB CA CB CI CEF CF CPR DAB EAFRD EAGF EAGGF-G EC EMFF ENPI ERDF ESF ESIF ETC EU-10 EU-12 EU-15 EYT FEAD FIFG H1B IIA IM & TA IPA Amending Budget Commitment appropriations Cross-border cooperation Community initiative Connecting Europe Facility Cohesion Fund Common Provisions Regulation Draft Amending Budget European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development European Agricultural Guarantee Fund European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, Guidance section European Commission European Maritime and Fisheries Fund European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument European Regional Development Fund European Social Fund European Structural and Investment Funds European Territorial Cooperation Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia EU-10 plus Bulgaria and Romania Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom End of the Year Transfer Fund for European Aid to the most Deprived Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance Heading 1b of the Multiannual Financial Framework Inter Institutional Agreement Innovation measures and technical assistance Instrument for Pre-Accession - 3 -

6 LDR MCS MDR MFF MS NSRF OP PAG PA RAL RCE SF TR YEI Less Developed Region Management and Control System More Developed Region Multiannual Financial Framework Member State National Strategic Reference Framework Operational programme Partnership Agreement Payment appropriations "Reste à Liquider" Outstanding Commitments Regional Competitiveness and Employment Structural Funds Transition Region Youth Employment Initiative - 4 -

7 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 FINANCIAL FRAMEWORK FOR : PROGRAMMING AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EUROPEAN STRUCTURAL AND INVESTMENT FUNDS THE ALLOCATION ANNUAL BREAKDOWN AND ADJUSTMENTS TO THE ENVELOPES PROGRAMMING IMPLEMENTATION OF PAYMENTS IN OUTSTANDING COMMITMENTS FROM THE PROGRAMMING PERIOD FOR ESIF AND FEAD BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION IN IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMITMENTS AND PAYMENTS IN TRANSFERS MADE IN EVOLUTION OF THE END-OF-YEAR CONCENTRATION EVOLUTION OF UNPAID PAYMENT CLAIMS AT YEAR END IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PERIOD COMMITMENTS FOR THE PERIOD The allocation for cohesion policy PAYMENTS FOR THE PERIOD Implementation of payments in Implementation of the allocation OUTSTANDING COMMITMENTS FROM THE PROGRAMMING PERIOD N+2 and N+3 DECOMMITMENTS (for ) Legal Framework N+2/N+3 de-commitments made in Cumulative N+2/N+3 de-commitments made by the end of MEMBER STATES PAYMENT FORECASTS FOR THE PERIOD IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PERIOD PAYMENTS AND RECONSTITUTIONS FOR PROGRAMMES IN CUMULATIVE DE-COMMITMENTS AT THE END OF 2015 (FOR ) OUTSTANDING COMMITMENTS FROM THE PROGRAMMING PERIOD Evolution of outstanding commitments in Breakdown of outstanding commitments by Member State

8 As mentioned in the last editions, the implementation report deals with all the funds of the programming period assigned to Heading 1b "Cohesion policy" of the financial framework: ERDF, ESF and the Cohesion Fund. It will also continue to cover the EAGGF-G and the FIFG until the closure of the respective programmes, as they were classified as Structural Funds of the period As from this edition, the report will start covering implementation of the new operational programmes for all the European Structural and Investment (ESI) Funds, namely ERDF, CF, ESF (including the YEI specific allocation), EAFRD and EMFF. It will also cover the FEAD which is part of sub-heading 1b but not an ESI Fund. However, the report does not cover the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the European Fisheries Fund (EFF) of Heading 2 "Natural Resources" of the financial framework , which were no longer Structural Funds during that programming period. As the Cohesion Fund was not subject to the Structural Funds regulatory framework in pre-2007 programming periods, this report, as in previous years, does not cover the pre-2007 Cohesion Fund. Finally, no reporting on the pre-2000 period will be provided as programmes are close to completion and the reduction of outstanding commitments will be mainly done via de-commitments at closure

9 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Overall implementation All operational programmes under the European Structural and Investment Fund (ESIF) and the Fund for European Aid to the most Deprived (FEAD) were adopted by the end of 2015, following a revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework. In 2015, payment of initial pre-financing totalled EUR 9.3 billion for the ESIF and FEAD while EUR 4.1 billion were disbursed in the form of interim payments For the programmes the backlog of outstanding unpaid claims at the end of 2015 was reduced to EUR 8.2 billion from the peak of EUR 24.7 billion at the end of 2014, with a faster phasing out of the 'abnormal' backlog for Cohesion policy than foreseen in the so called 'payment plan' agreed with the European Parliament and the Council. Additional payments were made to Greek programmes following the modification of the Common Provisions Regulation (CPR), entailing an additional initial pre-financing of 3.5% in 2015 and 2016 for the programmes and the increase of cofinancing to 100% coupled with the removal of the 95% threshold for the programmes. The total impact of EUR 2 billion additional payments in 2015 and 2016 was accommodated within the authorised payment appropriations. The overall level of outstanding commitments (reste à liquider, or RAL in its French acronym) increased from EUR 110 billion in 2014 to EUR 143 billion in 2015, mainly driven by the increasing commitments for the new programmes. Implementation of the programming period All the remaining programmes not adopted in 2014 and not included in the carry-over were adopted in This process concerned 121 programmes under Heading 1b and 113 programmes under Heading 2. The initial pre-financing for the YEI specific allocation in 2015 was increased to 30% in order to address the liquidity problems affecting many YEI programmes. This resulted in nearly EUR 930 million being made available upfront on top of the EUR 33.6 million initially foreseen by the legal base payments relate to the second instalment of the initial pre-financing and first interim payments. Pre-financing totalled EUR 9.3 billion for the ESIF and FEAD (including additional amounts for YEI and Greece). Rural development programmes accounted for about 80% (or EUR 3.3 billion) of the interim payments made in 2015 with EUR 0.8 billion being paid to Heading 1b funds. No interim payments were made in 2015 for EMFF. EUR 2.2 billion in payment appropriations were transferred from the programmes to reduce the backlog linked to the operational programmes. Implementation of the programming period for heading 1b In 2015, the initial budget of payment appropriations for the period amounted to EUR 39.5 billion, a 15% decrease on the corresponding 2014 figure. Payment appropriations were reinforced by EUR 2.2 billion via internal transfers and the end-of-the-year transfer, resulting in a final level of available appropriations of EUR 41.7 billion

10 Overall cumulative payments have reached 79.9% of the financial allocation and the level of outstanding commitments (RAL) decreased significantly from EUR 80 billion to around EUR 38 billion. The year-end backlog of outstanding unpaid claims was reduced to EUR 8.2 billion from the record-high level of EUR 24.7 billion at the end of The faster than expected reduction of the abnormal backlog consolidates the objective defined in the 'payment plan' of May 2015 of phasing-out the unsustainable backlog by end Implementation of the programming period 92% of the programmes, representing 80% of the total financial allocation, had been closed by the end of The outstanding commitments decreased by 35% from EUR 1.8 billion to EUR 1.2 billion contributing to the overall reduction of the RAL, of which payments (EUR 120 million) account for 19% of the reduction and closure de-commitments (EUR 526 billion) account for the remaining 81%

11 1 FINANCIAL FRAMEWORK FOR : PROGRAMMING AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EUROPEAN STRUCTURAL AND INVESTMENT FUNDS 1.1 THE ALLOCATION The envelope for economic, social and territorial cohesion (heading 1b) of the new multiannual financial framework (MFF) for the period was decided at the European Council on 2 December 2013 following the European Parliament's consent of 19 November 2013 where it was fixed at EUR billion in 2011 prices. In line with the European Council conclusions of June 2013 additional allocations of EUR 200 million for Cyprus (part of more developed regions below) were partly added through a mobilisation of the Flexibility Instrument in 2014 and The MFF allocations in 2011 prices are converted into 2014 current prices with a fixed inflator of 2% per year as foreseen by Article 6(2) of the MFF regulation. Finally, adjustments between categories of regions are made following some Member States' requests for transfers up to 3% of the total appropriations. The current H1b breakdown of commitments of EUR 367 billion (in current prices) is presented below: Chart 1: Heading 1b commitments relative share by type of region, Fund and objective - 9 -

12 Table 1: Heading 1b commitments by type of region, Fund and objective (EUR million) Policy funding for H1b Amount Less Developed Regions 179,349 Transition Regions 35,915 More Developed Regions 56,714 Outermost and northern sparsely populated regions 1,555 European Territorial Cooperation 10,108 Cohesion Fund (excl. CEF) 63,397 CEF contribution from Cohesion Fund 11,306 YEI special allocation 3,211 Urban innovative actions 372 ESF ERDF CF Technical Assistance 1,218 ESF ERDF Technical Assistance transferred to EC from MS 13 CF Technical Assistance transferred to EC from MS 3 FEAD allocation 3,814 FEAD Technical Assistance 13 Margin 3 Total 366,991 As from 2014 onwards, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the shared management part of the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), together with heading 1b Funds, represent the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF). The chart below presents the current share of these two Funds vis-à-vis the total Heading 2 envelope, the major component of which is the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF), which is not part of ESIF and therefore not covered further by this report 1 : Chart 2: Heading commitments relative share by Fund (EUR million) European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development - after EAGF transfers 99,582 European Maritime and Fisheries Fund 5,749 EAGF 'Market related expenditure and direct payments' after EAFRD transfers 308,730 1 Heading 2 also includes Environment and Climate Actions (0.7%) and other actions and programmes (0.1%) not presented above

13 The original amount for EAFRD (pillar 2 of the CAP) was EUR million at the beginning of the programming period but it has increased to EUR million following transfers and flexibility from EAGF (pillar 1 of the CAP). The EMFF envelope for shared management of EUR million has not changed. The annual breakdowns presented below were established by: European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Annex I of Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013. European Maritime and Fisheries Fund: Annex I of C(2014) 3781 of ; 1.2 ANNUAL BREAKDOWN AND ADJUSTMENTS TO THE ENVELOPES Both H1b and H2 ESIF annual 2015 commitment allocations increased significantly following the addition of the 2014 commitment appropriations not used in 2014 due to delays in programme adoptions, as foreseen by Article 19 of the Council Regulation No 1311/2013. The yearly and total impact of this reprogramming exercise on heading 1b and heading 2 is presented below by type of regions or by fund, when the regions classification is not applicable. Table 2: Heading 1b transfers of unused allocations from 2014 to subsequent years (EUR million) Table 3: Heading 2 transfers of unused allocations from 2014 to subsequent years (EUR million) Proposed transfers based on art.19 of the MFF in million EUR - current prices Total European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development -8,705 4,353 4,353 0 European Maritime and Fisheries Fund Total H2-9,446 5,093 4, The presented current annual breakdown for Heading 1b below was modified to include a slight increase at the level of technical assistance transferred to the Commission by Member States by application of Article 25 of the Common Provisions Regulation No 1303/ Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 laying down common provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund and laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006OJ L 347, , p

14 No other changes took place since this reprogramming exercise in the beginning of Table 4: Heading 1b annual allocations after MFF revision in current prices (EUR million) Current H1b after article 19 reprogramming - million EUR Total Less Developed Regions Transition Regions More Developed Regions Outermost and northern sparsely populated regions European Territorial Cooperation Cohesion Fund (excl. CEF) CEF contribution from Cohesion Fund YEI special allocation Urban innovative actions SF+CF Technical Assistance SF Technical Assistance transferred to EC from MS CF Technical Assistance transferred to EC from MS FEAD allocation FEAD Technical Assistance Margin Total The ESIF and FEAD annual allocations by Member State under H1b are included in ANNEX 6. The current annual breakdown for H2 is presented below: Table 5: Heading 2 annual breakdown of commitments in current prices (EUR million) Current H2 after article 19 reprogramming - in million EUR Total European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development - after EAGF transfers European Maritime and Fisheries Fund ESIF part of H EAGF 'Market related expenditure and direct payments' after EAFRD transfers Total H The ESIF annual allocations by Member State under H2 (EAFRD and EMFF) are included in ANNEX 7. The initial annual breakdown for EAFRD was modified to include net additional allocations transferred from pillar 1 (EAGF) 3. EAFRD was then decreased by a total of EUR 4.25 million (deducted from years ) as this amount was transferred back to EAGF following a UK Court decision to reduce the EAFRD programme for Wales. 1.3 PROGRAMMING All the remaining programmes not adopted in 2014 and not included in the carryover from 2014 to , were adopted in 2015 (H1b:121; H2: 91 for EAFRD and 22 for EMFF). Table 6 below shows the final outcome of the entire programme adoption process by Fund together with the number of designated authorities at 31/12/2015 and the total initial prefinancing paid in 2014 and Regulation (EU) No 1307/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 establishing rules for direct payments to farmers under support schemes within the framework of the common agricultural policy and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 637/2008 and Council Regulation (EC) No 73/2009 (OJ 347, , p.347) 4 Commission Decision C(2015) 827 on

15 Table 6: Adopted operational programmes and status of designation of authorities per Fund at 31 December 2015 Fund ERDF Total number of programmes Total allocation of programmes (EUR million) 187,121 Total number of programmes adopted Number of designated authorities Total allocation of adopted programmes (EUR million) Total initial prefinancing paid in 2014 & 2015 (EUR million) 187,121 4,110 CF 63,397 63,397 1, ESF 86,412 86,412 1,901 YEI 3,211 3,211 1,003 FEAD 28 3, , ETC , , EAFRD , ,786 2,170 EMFF 27 5, , TOTAL , ,724 11,333 The list of adopted operational programmes by Member State is included in ANNEX 8 together with the number of authorities designated by 31/12/2015. The lists of adopted programmes by MS for each Fund are included in ANNEX 9. In line with Article 20 of the CPR, 6% of the resources allocated to the ESIF Investment for Growth and Jobs goal, with the exception of resources allocated to YEI and transfers to EAFRD, CEF and FEAD, will constitute a performance reserve which shall be allocated after a 'performance review' in 2019 only to those programmes and priorities which have achieved their milestones. 1.4 IMPLEMENTATION OF PAYMENTS IN 2015 In 2015 the implementation of payment appropriations for the five ESI Funds 9 and FEAD amounted to EUR 13.6 billion corresponding to the second tranche of the initial pre-financing (EUR 9.3 billion) plus the first interim payments. As explained in the previous section, all the 562 ESI Funds programmes have been adopted before the end of 2015 (of which 417 programmes in Heading 1b) and the corresponding initial pre-financing has been paid out. However, implementation progressed at a slower pace than initially envisaged during the preparation of the draft budget Due to high ratio of Multi-Fund Programmes, they are not assigned by Fun d to avoid double counting. 6 Excluding Heading 1b contribution to IPA/ENI 7 The total allocation for EAFRD programmes is EUR 99, million after taking into account the amounts transferred by Commission regulation (EU) No 1378/2014 of 17/14/2014. However, some programmes have been adopted without taking into account this transfer and will have to be revised. In such cases, the corresponding amount is not included in the table above until the programmes are revised. 8 Article 65(2) of the Rural Development Regulation 1305/2013, requires Member States to designate, for each rural development programme, the Managing Authority, the accredited paying agency and the certification body. However, this requirement is not linked to the submission of the first application for interim payment to the Commission as required by the other ESIF and FEAD. For the programming period, the continuation of existing accredited paying agencies allows for Rural Development interim payments to take place as soon as the related programme is adopted. 9 ERDF, ESF (including YEI), CF, EAFRD and EMFF

16 At the end of December 2015, managing and certifying authorities had been designated for 67 programmes out of 417 in Heading 1b, while for EMFF no authorities were designated last year. The designation of authorities is a pre-requisite for submitting payment applications to the Commission for the funds mentioned above (with the exception of EAFRD). Due to the delays observed, the level of payment claims submitted in 2015 remained very low. Out of the total EUR 1.3 billion of payable claims submitted by Member States for Heading 1b funds, EUR 0.8 billion were paid as interim payments. A marginal amount of claims (EUR 0.5 billion) arrived too late to be processed and paid before year end and will therefore be paid using appropriations from the 2016 budget (the so-called 'normal backlog'). The lower than expected implementation of the new programmes allowed for a faster implementation pace on the Heading 1b programmes. Hence, in the second half of the year, some EUR 2.2 billion were transferred from the programmes under Heading 1b to the ERDF, ESF and CF programmes thus reducing the level of outstanding commitments for these programmes. In order to address the problem of the shortage of liquidity that prevented many Member States from starting YEI programmes on the ground, the Commission proposed in 2015 a modification of the ESF Regulation 10 allowing for an increase to 30% of the initial prefinancing applied in 2015 to the YEI specific allocation. This resulted in the disbursement of EUR million additional pre-financing in 2015, which complemented the EUR 33.6 million initially foreseen by the legal base. Interim payments to the tune of EUR 66.6 million were made before year-end. Regarding FEAD, the implementation of payments in 2015 progressed much slower than expected, with only 12.5% of the payment appropriations in the initial budget being executed. This situation was caused by the delays in the designation of managing and certifying authorities which prevented many Member States from submitting payment applications to the Commission and is expected to be a temporary one. The FEAD operational budget line was the main source of redeployment in the End of Year transfer, returning EUR 285 million in payment appropriations which were chiefly used to reinforce the rural development programmes. As for Heading 2 funds, rural development programmes fully executed their initial budget (EUR 5.2 billion). Out of this amount, pre-financing payments accounted for a relatively small share in the overall execution (EUR 1.9 billion) with the balance representing interim payments. As explained above, in the case of rural development programmes the submission of payment declarations can take place independently of the designation of authorities. For EMFF implementation was limited to the payment of pre-financing (EUR 134 million). 1.5 OUTSTANDING COMMITMENTS FROM THE PROGRAMMING PERIOD FOR ESIF AND FEAD The level of outstanding commitments for the period for ESIF and FEAD has increased significantly in 2015 reaching EUR billion (see Table 7 below). The increase 10 Regulation (EU) No 1304/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 amended by Regulation (EU) 2015/779 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015, OJ L 347, , p

17 on the corresponding figure at the end of 2014 (EUR 27.9 billion) can be explained on the one hand by the re-programming exercise of part of the 2014 allocation and on the other hand by the lower than expected take-up of the new programmes in terms of payments. Table 7: Outstanding commitments at the end of 2015* (in EUR million) Outstanding commitments at the end of De-/Re-commitments in 2015 on RAL at the end of 2014** 0 Payments in 2015 on outstanding commitments at the end of (1) TOTAL outstanding commitments from before New commitments made in Payments on 2015 commitments (2) TOTAL outstanding commitments from (1)+(2) TOTAL outstanding commitments at the end of * only operational lines ** including transfer of Croatian pre-accession RAL to cohesion policy lines 2 BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION IN 2015 As above, regarding the programming period, the report only deals with the Funds assigned to Heading 1b "Cohesion policy" of the financial framework: ERDF and ESF and the Cohesion Fund. It will also continue to cover the EAGGF-G and the FIFG until the closure of the respective programmes, as they were Structural Funds of the period but not the pre-2007 Cohesion Fund which was not cover by the same regulatory framework. 2.1 IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMITMENTS AND PAYMENTS IN 2015 In line with the legal framework, the execution of commitments in 2015 for the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI Funds) amounted to EUR 89.3 billion, as shown in Table 8 below. All available commitment appropriations were committed except for technical assistance where a marginal amount of commitment appropriations were not used and lapsed at the end of the year. This record-high level of commitment appropriations was the result of significant delays in the adoption of programmes for the current programming period, as explained below. Because of delays in the adoption of ESI Funds operational programmes, a large amount of commitment appropriations could not be implemented in For operational programmes where the adoption process was close to completion, the corresponding commitment appropriations were carried over to 2015 and implemented before 31 March. For Heading 1b fund the carry-over of commitments totalled nearly EUR 8.5 billion while for EAFRD and EMFF the corresponding figure was almost EUR 2 billion. In the cases where the adoption process was not sufficiently advanced, the non-implemented commitments were reprogrammed in 2015 and 2016, with a very small amount for ETC (EUR 43 million) being reprogrammed in 2017, as explained in part 1.2 above. All 28 Member States were concerned by the re-programming exercise. The re-programming was carried out via Amending Budget No 1 to the 2015 Budget which was presented at the same time as the proposal for a revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the

18 years , in accordance with article 19 of the MFF Regulation 11. In accordance with the MFF revision, AB1 proposed an increase of commitment appropriations for Heading 1b funds by EUR 11.1 billion while for the funds under shared management in Heading 2 the corresponding increase was nearly EUR 5.1 billion. Table 8: Outturn of Commitment Appropriations for the period in 2015* by Fund (in EUR million) FUND VOTED BUDGET TRANSFERS, AMENDING BUDGETS, ADDITIONAL APPROPRIATIONS** TOTAL COMMITMENT APPROPRIATIONS OUTTURN % ERDF ,0% ESF ,0% CF ,0% YEI ,0% FEAD ,9% EAFRD ,0% EMFF ,0% TOTAL ,0% *figures include operational lines and technical assistance ** including carry-over from 2014 Executed payment appropriations totalled EUR 55.5 billion for the three programming periods covered by this report, an increase of some EUR 1.4 billion compared to The bulk of the payments, EUR 41.8 billion, covered interim payments for the programmes. As a larger number of old programmes approached completion, payments of the final balance for programmes represented less than half of the previous year's level, totalling EUR 120 million. For the programmes, the level of payment appropriations was reinforced during the year by means of internal transfers coming mainly from the ESI Funds programmes and by the End of Year Transfer (EYT), albeit to a very limited extent. Additional payment appropriations for programmes totalled EUR 2.2 billion, including the EYT reinforcement of EUR million. The level of closure payments was lower in 2015 compared to 2014, as closure for the period has not started yet. As no payment appropriations were foreseen in the initial budget for the lines, payment needs were covered by additional appropriations from assigned revenue (EUR 182 million) and to a lesser extent by a limited number of internal transfers (EUR 20 million). As regards the programmes, the bulk of the payments represented initial prefinancing (EUR 9.3 billion) while interim payments remained very limited, particularly for Heading 1b funds. Out of the EUR 4.1 billion of interim payments made last year, only EUR 0.8 billion were related to Heading 1b funds while the balance was paid in favour of rural development programmes. This is explained by the delays in the designation of authorities for the Heading 1b funds as well as EMFF, which is a pre-requisite for the submission of interim payment applications. While for rural development programmes there is also an obligation for Member States to designate the managing and certifying authorities for each programme, this 11 Council Regulation No 1311/2013, OJ L 347,

19 requirement is not linked to the timing of the submission of interim payment applications, which explains the high level of interim payments made last year for EAFRD. As shown in Table 9 below, available payment appropriations were almost entirely executed at year end, with the overall execution rate for payments reaching 99.8% compared to the final available appropriations. Out of the remaining EUR 110 million, EUR 74.5 million appropriations related to assigned revenue from closure operations were automatically carried over to Thus, the effective net level of lapsing payment appropriations stood at only EUR 35 million (0.06% of the final available appropriations) concerning only technical assistance lines. Table 9: Outturn of Payment Appropriations in 2015* by Fund (in EUR million) FUND VOTED BUDGET TRANSFERS, AMENDING BUDGETS, ADDITIONAL APPROPRIATIONS TOTAL PAYMENT APPROPRIATIONS OUTTURN % ERDF % ESF % EAGGF % FIFG % TOTAL % ERDF 21,764 1,833 23,597 23, % ESF 7, ,666 7, % CF 10, ,509 10, % TOTAL ,532 2,240 41,772 41, % ERDF 5,696-1,387 4,310 4, % ESF 1, ,587 1, % CF 1, ,233 1, % YEI 1, ,035 1, % FEAD % EAFRD 5, ,269 5, % EMFF % TOTAL ,094-2,474 13,621 13, % *figures include operational lines and technical assistance 55, ,596 55, % Additional financing for Greek programmes in 2015 and 2016 In line with the Euro Summit Statement of 12 July 2015 calling for the mobilization of "up to EUR 35 billion (under various EU programmes) to fund investment and economic activity, including in SMEs", the Commission proposed a modification of the CPR governing the functioning of the ESIF during the programming period in order to provide additional liquidity to Greek operational programmes in 2015 and This proposal concerned both the programmes as well as the ones. For the programmes it was decided to increase the co-financing from the Structural and Cohesion funds to 100% and to lift the 95% threshold for the payment of prefinancing and interim payments in order to allow for the reimbursement of payment claims up to 100% of the programmes' envelopes. This change applies to convergence and regional competitiveness and employment programmes. The general rule stipulates that once the 95% threshold has been reached, submission of payment applications may continue but closure payments are made only following the submission of closure documents. As regards the programmes the changes to the CPR foresee an additional initial pre-financing of 3.5% to be paid in 2015 and 2016 for the Greek operational programmes

20 under the Cohesion policy and EMFF. This provision does not apply to ETC programmes and the YEI specific allocation. The budgetary impact of the Greek proposal was an additional EUR 1 billion in payments in each of the years 2015 and 2016, split equally between the two programming periods concerned. This legislative proposal implied the frontloading of approximately EUR 2 billion from to and it was deemed budgetary neutral in both years. The Commission did not present an Amending Budget for Budget 2015 or an Amending Letter for the DB 2016 in order to finance this proposal. Following the adoption of the amendments to the CPR 12, the Commission proceeded immediately with the corresponding payments to Greek programmes. 12 Regulation (EU) 2015/1839 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 October 2015, OJ L 347, , p

21 2.2 TRANSFERS MADE IN 2015 The transfers below have been carried out in As usual, a certain number of transfers were made by the Commission under its own prerogatives established in the Financial Regulation (a detailed list of these transfers is attached in ANNEX 2): Transfers of commitment appropriations were made for the following reasons: 1. Several transfers totalling EUR 908 million were carried out between the ERDF and ESF operational lines in order to rebalance commitment appropriations following the adoption of the remaining operational programmes in the course of During the preparation of DB 2015, as the new operational programmes were not adopted, the breakdown of commitments between ESF and ERDF was based on the ESF minimum share that each Member State had to respect. Following the adoption of all operational programmes a rebalancing of commitments between funds was necessary as most Member States had programmed in favour of ESF more than the minimum share. 2. As in 2014 and in keeping with the provisions of Article 25 of the Common Provision Regulation (CPR) 13 Cyprus decided to transfer part of its technical assistance envelope for the programmes to the technical assistance at the initiative of the Commission for the implementation of measures linked to administrative reforms in response to economic and social challenges. Thus, the ERDF operational technical assistance line managed by the Commission at the request of MS received a transfer of EUR 0.2 million from the Cypriot allocation for more developed regions. 3. EUR 1 million were returned from the Heading 1b contribution to IPA- Crossborder cooperation programmes to the ETC main line towards the end of the year due to the non-adoption of Greece-Turkey and Cyprus-Turkey IPA programmes. 4. EUR 44.2 million were transferred from ETC main line to the Heading 1b contribution to ENI-Cross-border cooperation programmes in the second half of the year. This was due to the fact that in 2014, at the time of the preparation of DB 2015, the precise breakdown by component of the ETC allocation was not known and the contribution to the ENI-Cross-border cooperation programmes had to be budgeted on the main ETC line. 5. Several transfers of assigned revenue from the ESF and ERDF programmes to ERDF pre-2000 lines were necessary in order to proceed with payments in favour of Spain and Germany. This followed the final ruling of the Court of Justice on procedural issues related to the Commission's financial correction cases in these two Member States under programmes. As regards payment appropriations, several transfers were carried out within and between periods in order to optimize budget implementation. As only very few valid 13 Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December

22 payment application for the operational programmes were received in 2015 (some EUR 1.3 billion), it was possible to transfer approximately EUR 2.2 billion from the ERDF, ESF and CF lines to the programmes in order to further reduce the backlog of unpaid claims. A limited number of transfers were carried out for the ESF programmes mainly in the second half of December in order to optimize year-end implementation. Thus, additional payment appropriations totalling some EUR 370 million were made available for the Convergence and RCE objectives mainly via a transfer from the ESF programmes. For the ERDF, payment appropriations for the pre-2000 programmes were reinforced by around EUR 187 million as a result of a transfer from ERDF LDR. Additional transfers of assigned revenue from the programmes were necessary in order to honour the financial obligations resulting from the Court of Justice ruling (totalling EUR million). As regards the period, ERDF lines were reinforced by approximately EUR 1.8 billion via transfers from the new ERDF programmes, the Cohesion Fund and ultimately via the End of Year Transfer. Finally, the Cohesion Fund line was used to reinforce the ERDF programmes of the same programming period in September by EUR 0.5 billion and had to be reinforced in December by a similar transfer from the CF line as well as the pre-2007 Cohesion Fund projects. The End of Year Transfer (EYT), introduced in 2012 in the context of the revision of the Financial Regulation 14, allows the Commission to make use of any unused payment appropriations across the budget made available in mid-december in order to mitigate the lack of payment appropriations for shared management funds. The mechanism allows for the transfer to be operated by the Commission before the end of the financial year N and presented to the budgetary authority in early January of the following year. In case of rejection by the Council or European Parliament the transfer is cancelled and the necessary regularization operations reducing the budgetary consumption of year N are applied. For the 2015 exercise, payment appropriations totalling EUR million were drawn from 63 budget lines, with the bulk of the availabilities coming from the FEAD programmes and technical assistance lines. Because of delays in the designation of authorities, most Member States had not submitted any payment claims for FEAD by December Of this amount, EUR million was used to reinforce the ERDF Regional competitiveness programmes with the balance being transferred to the completion line of rural development programmes. The transfer was validated by the budgetary authority in January EVOLUTION OF THE END-OF-YEAR CONCENTRATION As most of the commitments under the European Structural and Investment Funds are typically made at the beginning of the year in accordance with the legal base (except for the first year of the programming period), Chart 3 below focuses only on the end-of-year concentration for payments in December. 14 Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union and repealing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 (OJ L 298, , p.1)

23 In 2015, the year-end concentration of payments dropped to a level close to the one observed in Unlike in previous years, in 2015 no additional payment appropriations were made available for cohesion policy lines towards the end of the year as it had previously been the case. Chart 3: Concentration of payments in December (percentage executed in December) since % 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Payment Despite a somewhat slower start in the very beginning of the year, the payment claim submission in 2015 progressed faster than in the previous two years (see Chart 4 below). Thus by the end of the summer about half of the total payment applications had been received by the Commission. The year-end concentration was also reduced compared to previous years. While in 2013 and 2014 the claims submitted during the last two months of the year accounted for 38% and 44%, respectively, last year the corresponding figure was 24%. Out of the EUR 6 billion worth of payment claims submitted during the last two months of the year, about 87% (EUR 5.2 billion) only arrived in December. The low concentration of payment claims arriving very late in the year can be explained by the absence of an automatic de-commitment constraint at the end of 2015 for most Member States (Romania and Slovakia were still concerned by an n+3 de-commitment rule applicable to the 2012 commitment tranche)

24 Chart 4: Monthly pattern of cumulative interim payment claim submission for the period between 2013 and 2015 (in % of the total) 100.0% 90.0% 80.0% 70.0% 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec % of Total % 2.0% 9.5% 12.1% 18.7% 26.3% 35.3% 38.7% 48.3% 62.0% 65.4% 100.0% % of Total % 3.0% 8.4% 12.5% 18.4% 26.3% 33.4% 35.8% 44.3% 55.8% 59.3% 100.0% % of Total % 1.7% 13.7% 18.0% 22.5% 35.4% 43.7% 46.2% 59.6% 76.1% 79.1% 100.0%

25 2.4 EVOLUTION OF UNPAID PAYMENT CLAIMS AT YEAR END The payment claims still pending at the end of the year are usually referred to as the year-end backlog. At the end of every year a certain volume of interim payment claims are submitted too late in December to be paid during the same year and therefore have to be honoured in the following year - the so called 'normal' backlog. In addition to the claims arriving too late in December to be paid and the ones interrupted or suspended, an increasing volume of claims arriving sufficiently early in November / December also remained unpaid between 2011 and 2014 due to the lack of payment appropriations the so called 'abnormal' backlog. This growing abnormal backlog had an increasingly adverse effect on the implementation of the following year s budget. The unsustainable level of unpaid claims at the end of 2014 (nearly EUR 25 billion) prompted the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament to commit to a payment plan" to progressively phase-out the outstanding payment claims for the programmes by the end of Based on the analysis presented in the Commission document "Elements for a payment plan", as updated in October 2015, the backlog was estimated at a maximum amount of around EUR 17 billion for the end of 2015, down from the EUR 24.7 billion peak reached at the end of Taking into consideration the valid payment applications received and reimbursements made by the Commission by end-2015 (capped to the 95% ceiling), the actual backlog of unpaid payment applications for the programmes under Heading 1b stood at some EUR 8.2 billion at the end of The faster than expected phasing-out of the abnormal backlog consolidated the objective defined in the "payment plan". It also reduced the cash-flow constraints at the beginning of 2016, redressing the pattern experienced over the last four years, thus minimizing delays in reimbursing Member States, which would have been unavoidable with a larger backlog. Two main reasons have been identified for the nearly EUR 9 billion lower-than-expected backlog of unpaid claims at the end of last year: 1. The submission of payment applications (for programmes below 95%) was almost EUR 7 billion lower than announced by Member States in their July forecasts (EUR 25.1 billion instead of an expected amount of around EUR 32.0 billion). This may be explained by the absence of the N+2/N+3 automatic de-commitment deadlines at the end of 2015 for most Member States. Although 31 December 2015 marked the end of the eligibility period for operations, interim payment applications for the programmes can be submitted until 31 March Consequently, there was little incentive for Member States to submit payment applications during the last weeks of Payments made by the Commission were some EUR 2.2 billion higher than originally planned (EUR 41.8 billion instead of EUR 39.5 billion initially budgeted), mainlythanks to transfers made from budget lines relating to the programmes, including through the end-of-the-year transfer (EUR 127 million for Heading 1b). The

26 slower than expected start-up of the new programmes can be explained by the delays experienced by Member States in the designation of the management and certifying authorities. Despite the simplification introduced by the new regulation, removing the obligation of having these authorities approved by the Commission through a compliance assessment, the designation process at national level seems to take longer than expected. While it is not a condition for starting the implementation of the programmes on the ground, it is a prerequisite for the submission of the payment applications. The year-end backlog has therefore been reduced substantially at the end of 2015 compared to 2014 as can be seen in Table 10 below. Table 10: Payment applications received in 2015 and unpaid applications at year-end for period (in EUR billion) Fund Unpaid payment applications at 01/01/2015 Valid payment applications received by 31/12/2015 Payments made by 31/12/2015 Unpaid payment applications as at 31/12/2015 ESF ERDF CF Total H1b cf. 31/12/ Note: Execution figures exclude technical assistance Chart 5 shows the evolution of the year-end backlog for the programmes starting with Between 2010 and 2014, the level of unpaid claims at the end of the year had multiplied by four, from EUR 6.1 billion to EUR 24.7 billion but was reduced to EUR 8.2 billion at the end of 2015 (-67% compared to end 2014), thus approaching the 2010 level. In relative terms, the weight of ERDF claims in the total level of unpaid claims remained stable at a high level of around 62%, while the ESF and CF displayed opposing trends. Thus, between 2010 and 2013, the share of ESF pending claims decreased from nearly a third of the total at the end of 2010 to only about a sixth at the end of 2013, whereas the weight of unpaid CF claims has increased steadily over the same period from less than 6% to more than 18% of the total unpaid claims. A reversal of this trend could however be observed in 2014 and 2015, when the share of the ESF backlog increased to about a quarter of the total whereas the weight of unpaid CF claims in the total backlog declined to about 10% at the end of last year

27 Chart 5: Evolution of unpaid payment claims at the end of the year for period between 2010 and 2015 (in EUR billion) ESF ERDF CF As regards the new programmes of ESF (including YEI), ERDF, CF and FEAD, the level of unpaid payment applications at the end of 2015 stood at approximately EUR 0.5 billion, all of which had come too late in December to be paid. This very low level of backlog reflects the slower start-up of the programmes and the delays in the designation of managing and certifying authorities, as explained above

28 3 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PERIOD 3.1 COMMITMENTS FOR THE PERIOD The allocation for cohesion policy The final annual breakdown of the cohesion policy allocations by Member State can be found in Annex 6 of the 2013 report. 3.2 PAYMENTS FOR THE PERIOD Implementation of payments in 2015 In 2015, the initial budget of payment appropriations for the period amounted to EUR 39.5 billion (see Table 11 below), a reduction of about 15% compared to the corresponding 2014 figure. As explained above, payment appropriations were reinforced by some EUR 2.2 billion via internal Commission transfers and by the EYT resulting in a final level of available appropriations of EUR 41.7 billion. In its 2015 draft budget the Commission had proposed an amount of EUR 40.3 billion for the programmes. Available appropriations were almost entirely implemented during the year, apart from very marginal amounts concerning technical assistance. At the end of 2014 payment claims totalling EUR 24.7 billion had remained unpaid and had to be settled using the appropriations available in Budget Thus, out of the EUR 39.5 billion in the 2015 budget for programmes, less than 40% (EUR 14.8 billion) remained available for settling payment claims submitted in As in previous years this situation required a close monitoring of available cash-flow by the Commission but also sent a strong signal as to the unsustainable level of the backlog. Immediate action was needed to bring the backlog of payment claims for the Cohesion policy down to a sound level. In March 2015 the Commission presented to the budgetary authority the document Elements for a payment plan in which it committed to reduce the abnormal backlog of outstanding payment claims for the Cohesion policy programmes to EUR 20 billion at the end of 2015 and to a maximum of EUR 2 billion at the end of The Council and the European Parliament adopted the document in May 2015 thus endorsing the shared goal of the three institutions to bring the Cohesion policy backlog back to a sustainable path and to prevent in the future a similar build-up of unpaid payment claims for the new generation of operational programmes. In October 2015 the Commission, drawing on the revised Member States forecasts submitted the previous July, presented an update of the analysis in the payment plan regarding the expected implementation in According to this updated analysis, the backlog at the end of the year was estimated at a maximum of EUR 17 billion. As explained above the end of the year backlog was below expectations by some EUR 9 billion mainly due to the lower than expected submission of payment claims and the additional payment appropriations which could be transferred from the lines

29 As regards payment implementation by Fund, the Regional Competitiveness and Employment (RCE) and ETC lines under ERDF had already exhausted more than 80% of their available appropriations by July. Additional appropriations were made available via transfers from the new ERDF programmes as well as the Cohesion Fund line. The Regional competitiveness objective was reinforced by an additional EUR million in the EYT. Overall the payment appropriations on the ERDF RCE and ETC lines were supplemented by 27% and 29%, respectively, of their initial budget. The ERDF convergence line received a reinforcement of some EUR 800 million in the last two months of the year from the ERDF Less developed Region (LDR) line in order to optimize implementation towards the end of the year. For the Cohesion Fund the year-end implementation differed only slightly from the initial budget but the line was used to provide much needed reinforcements to the ERDF RCE and ETC lines in September (EUR 500 million). A transfer of a similar order of magnitude in favour of the Cohesion Fund was carried out in the second half of December from the CF line with a marginal amount being provided by the pre-2007 CF projects. As for ESF, the payment appropriations on the Convergence and RCE lines were increased to a lesser extent compared to their initial budget (by 3% and 9% respectively) by means of a limited number of transfers from the new programmes. Overall, some EUR 370 million were made available last year by the programmes in favour of the ESF completion lines. As regards the top-up of 10 percentage points to the applicable co-financing rates for Member States receiving financial assistance 15, the corresponding payments in 2015 totalled EUR million. The Member States concerned by such payments in 2015 were Greece, Romania, Ireland and Cyprus. The validity of the top-up provisions was initially limited to expenditure declared until 31 December In order to take due account of the continued liquidity problems faced by the Member States implementing fiscal consolidation measures, an amendment of the General Regulation was adopted in December 2013 to allow for continuation of top-up payments until the end of the programming period. 16 As explained previously, the additional payments in favour of Greek operational programmes triggered by the increase of the co-financing rate to 100% (approximately EUR 500 million) could be financed through the appropriations available in the 2015 budget without a need for an amending budget. However, these additional payments made after the modification of the CPR in mid -October were no longer reported as top-up payments. 15 Based on Regulation (EU) no 1311/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council of 13 December 2011 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 as regards certain provisions relating to financial management for certain Member States experiencing serious difficulties with respect to their financial stability. 16 Regulation (EU) No 1297/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 as regards certain provisions relating to financial management for certain Member States experiencing or threatened with serious difficulties with respect to their financial stability, to the decommitment rules for certain Member States, and to the rules on payments of the final balance

30 Table 11: Payments - available appropriations and their implementation in 2015 for the period (in EUR million) Budget item Title Initial Budget Amending Budgets Transfers Total available Total execution RAL 1/01/2015 Changes of RAL** Other additional appropriati ons* RAL 31/12/ ESF - Convergence 4, , , , , ESF - PEACE p.m p.m ESF - Regional competitiveness and employment 2, , , , , ESF - Operational TA Total ESF 7, , , , , ERDF - Convergence 18, , , , , ERDF - PEACE ERDF - Regional competitivess and employment 2, , , , , ERDF - European territorial co-operation , , , ERDF - Operational TA ERDF - Operational TA Baltic Sea Strategy Total ERDF 21, , , , , , Cohesion Fund , , , , , Total CF 10, , , , , TOTAL 39, , , , , , * Assigned revenue and appropriations made available again ** Recommitted & Decommitted & Cancelled Chart 6 shows the monthly distribution of payments throughout the year. Overall, implementation in 2015 followed a similar evolution with the one observed during the previous year, while staying slightly above the 2014 level. While during the summer period the implementation in 2015 nearly mirrored the one in 2014, as of September it picked up and remained above the 2014 level until the end of the year. As can be observed in the chart below, the evolution during the last quarter of the year was almost identical with the one in It should however be noted that the percentage refers to executed appropriations at year-end. In the absence of the additional payment appropriations provided via EYT and transfers from the programmes, the 2015 curve would have been much steeper in the second half of the year

31 % Chart 6: Monthly implementation patterns of payments in (%) for the period Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Payments period Payments period Payments period Payments period Payments period Payments period Payments period Payments period Payments period Implementation of the allocation The cumulative execution of the allocation by Member State broken down by payment type shown in Chart 7 below reflects the approach of the majority of programmes to the closure period. Overall, at 12% of the total allocation, the yearly interim payment execution in 2015 has declined below an average annual commitment tranche. At 79.9%, average cumulative interim payment execution now accounts for more than three quarters of the total allocation (5.5 average annual commitment tranches). For 8 Member States the cumulative total of pre-financing and interim payments made has reached the 95% threshold foreseen in the General Regulation 17 on the functioning of the Structural and Cohesion funds during the period. In this case no additional interim payments can be made. Member States have until 31 March 2017 to submit closure documents, based on which the Commission can proceed with the payment of the final balance. Greece represents a particular case as the legislative modifications adopted in 2015 allow for the removal of the 95% threshold and the continuation of interim payments in favour of Greek operational programmes up to 100% of their allocation. At the opposite end of the scale, for 6 Member States interim payment execution stayed below 75% of the allocation. Romania represents an extreme case with interim payment execution still below 60% of its allocation. The particularly high level of cumulative advance payments of about 11% for Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary and Romania is the result of the additional advance payments these five countries received in As concerns Croatia, the chart refers to execution of the 17 Council Regulation (EC) N 1083/

32 H1b envelope assigned upon accession, including the settlement of pre-accession assistance. Implementation of the new Croatian Convergence programmes has started only in 2014 due to delays in the adoption of management and control systems (MCS). As Croatia's accession took place towards the end of the programming period, special arrangements were foreseen for the implementation of the Union assistance. Thus, the expenditure incurred by Croatian operational programmes is eligible for a contribution from the Structural and Cohesion Funds until 31 December 2016 (compared to 31 December 2015 for the other Member States) while the deadline for the submission of closure documents is 31 March Overall, it should be recalled that total interim payment execution in 2015 progressed further due to the EUR 2.2 billion transfer of additional payment appropriations from the new ESIF programmes, as explained above. Chart 7: Cumulative execution of advance and interim payments at the end of 2015 by EU-28 Member States (compared to the national allocation available for the period incl. reserves and pt17iia) EU28 EE LT PT FI DE IE EL BE SE PL LU AT LV NL SI ES CY FR HU CB UK DK SK CZ MT IT BG RO HR 8.7% 10.6% 10.8% 7.5% 7.5% 7.5% 7.5% 7.5% 7.5% 7.5% 9.2% 7.5% 7.5% 7.5% 9.5% 7.5% 9.5% 7.4% 10.8% 8.2% 7.5% 7.5% 9.4% 9.4% 9.5% 7.5% 10.7% 9.5% 11.0% 22.6% 58.4% 71.7% 74.7% 76.2% 73.0% 72.1% 75.8% 33.1% 79.9% 84.2% 87.5% 87.5% 84.9% 82.5% 85.3% 83.0% 84.3% 83.7% 84.7% 77.6% 80.4% 84.4% 87.2% 85.6% 87.5% 82.4% 82.4% 90.6% 85.5% 87.5% 39.3% 25.7% 0.0% 0.0% 13.4% 15.8% 10.8% 11.3% 6.4% 6.6% 7.1% 9.8% 12.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2.6% 5.0% 5% 1.9% 2.2% 5% 4.5% 3.8% 2.9% 5% 4.4% 0.3% 5% 0.1% 5% 0.0% 5% 0.0% 5% 3.1% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% 0% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Cumulative execution advance payments (%) as of end 2015 Cumulative execution interim payments (%) as of end 2015 Not executed (%) Last 5% Chart 8 below also illustrates the progress of interim payment execution. At 82.4%, and 82.5%, respectively, interim payments for the ESF and ERDF in Regional Competitiveness and Employment (RCE) regions are now equivalent to more than five and a half average annual commitment tranches. Cumulative interim payment execution for ERDF ETC regions is about 2.4 percentage points above the average while cumulative interim payment execution for ERDF Convergence and Cohesion Fund are very close to the average

33 Chart 8: Cumulative EU-28 execution of advance and interim payments at the end of 2015 by objective and fund, compared to the overall allocation available for the period (including reserves and pt17 IIA) Total 8.7% 79.9% 6.4% 5% RCE ESF 7.6% 82.4% 5.0% 5% CONV ESF 8.8% 79.1% 7.1% 5% RCE ERDF 7.6% 82.5% 4.9% 5% CONV ERDF 8.3% 79.3% 7.4% 5% ETC ERDF 8.2% 82.3% 4.5% 5% CONV CF 10.7% 79.3% 5.0% 5% 0% 10% 20% 30% Cumulative 40% execution advance 50% payments (%) 60% as of end % 80% 90% 100% Cumulative execution interim payments (%) as of end 2015 Not executed (%) Last 5% 3.3 OUTSTANDING COMMITMENTS FROM THE PROGRAMMING PERIOD The outstanding commitments for the period have decreased by 52% (EUR 42 billion) to EUR 38.4 billion in 2015, continuing the downward trend started in Outstanding commitments for the programmes have been reduced even further than initially foreseen in 2015 by making use of payment appropriations available under the lines. As explained above, reinforcement by some EUR 2.2 billion of the lines was possible via transfers from the new programmes for which the delays in the designation of authorities hindered the submission of payment applications. Table 12: Outstanding commitments at the end of 2015* (in EUR million) Outstanding commitments at the end of De-/Re-commitments in 2015 on RAL at the end of 2014** -499 Payments in 2015 on outstanding commitments at the end of (1) TOTAL outstanding commitments from before New commitments made in Payments on 2015 commitments 0 (2) TOTAL outstanding commitments from (1)+(2) TOTAL outstanding commitments at the end of * only operational lines (incl. CF technical assistance) ** including transfer of Croatian pre-accession RAL to cohesion policy lines

34 The share of the total RAL of EU-12 countries plus Croatia has slightly decreased in 2015 to 52.5% as the outstanding commitments of these Member States declined, on average, at a faster pace than the RAL of EU-15 countries which now accounts for 45.7% of total RAL for the period. While the first five countries in terms of RAL have not changed at the end of 2015 compared to the previous year, the ranking was different. Thus, Italy remains the Member State with the highest level of outstanding commitments for the programmes, and it is now followed closely by Romania and Spain. Czech Republic and Poland have reduced their level of RAL by 59% and 65%, respectively, thus distancing themselves from the first three. The five aforementioned Member States accounted together for almost 64% of total RAL at the end of 2015, up from 59% at the end of For the Greek programmes the RAL decreased by more than 80% last year, while for French and Slovak programmes the reduction exceeded 60%. Overall, for most countries the share in the total RAL at the end of 2015 differs only rather slightly from the relative weight of the country's initial allocation. However, because of diverging speed of interim payment execution, for some MS discrepancies between the share in RAL and the share in the total allocation have increased. These discrepancies became particularly visible last year for Romania and Poland. Thus, while Romania's allocation accounts for 5.5% of the overall allocation, its RAL accounted for nearly 15% of the overall RAL at the end of last year. Similarly, the share of outstanding commitments of Polish programmes in the total RAL was reduced to 9% at the end of 2015 while their allocation accounts for more than 19% of the overall Heading 1b allocation for the same programming period. Chart 9: Outstanding commitments by Member State at the end of 2015 for the period (in EUR million) 6,000 4,000 2,000 0 IT RO ES CZ PL HU DE SK UK PT FR BG Other GR LT HR LV SI EE MT NL BE SE FI AT IE CY DK LU ,769 5,735 5,497 3,951 3,451 2,874 1,916 1,685 1,185 1,074 1,

35 Chart 10: Ratio RAL at end 2015 / average yearly commitments RO IT MT ES CZ SK BG UK HU IE NL CB CY FR DE BE AT SE PL FI PT LV LT DK SI LU EE HR EL 3.4 N+2 and N+3 DECOMMITMENTS (for ) Legal Framework For the programming period N+2/N+3 de-commitments are regulated by Article 93 of Council Regulation (EC) N 1083/2006 (General Regulation). According to the original version of Article 93 the first de-commitments for the programming period were to have been calculated as of the end of The provisions were however modified by the amending Regulation (EU) N 539/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 June Among the measures for combating the crisis, in July 2009, the Commission proposed a set of amendments to the cohesion policy General Regulation containing a simplification package and a financial package for the ESF. The financial proposal was rejected by the Council and finally replaced, with unanimity in Council, by additional advances of EUR 775 million limited to 5 MS and a change to the automatic de-commitment rule which spreads the 2007 commitment tranche equally over the years 2008 to For the commitments of year 2007 the automatic de-commitment rule does not apply as of end 2009 (N+2) / end 2010 (N+3) but rather 1/6 of this tranche is added to the calculation of de-commitments for each of the subsequent tranches. According to this modified rule the first de-commitments were therefore only calculated as of 31/12/2010 for the N+2 countries and as of 31/12/2011 for the N+3 countries 18. Any amounts at risk, calculated as of 31 December of year N+2/N+3, are subject to contradictory procedures with the Member States concerned. Amounts confirmed during these procedures shall then be de-committed by 30 September of the following year. 18 The Regulation was lastly amended at the end of 2013 to modify the de-commitment targets for Romania and Slovakia. Those countries were granted N+3 for two more years. Moreover, as stipulated in the Accession Treaty, Croatia will benefit from an N+3 rule up to the end of the period

36 Therefore, the first N+2 de-commitments for the period were effectively implemented in 2011 as a result of the N+2 calculation as of 31 December 2010 for the N+2 countries, while the first N+3 de-commitments were effectively implemented in 2012, as result of the N+3 calculation as of 31 December N+2/N+3 de-commitments made in 2015 In line with the revised legal framework, 2015 was the fifth year of implementation of N+2 de-commitments for the N+2 countries and the fourth year of implementation of N+3 decommitments for the N+3 countries during the programming period The total amount de-committed under the N+2/N+3 rule in 2015 was EUR million or 0.8% of the end 2014 target amount of commitments to be covered by either payments or valid payment claims. Thirty programmes were affected by the automatic de-commitment rule (see detailed list in ANNEX 3). As concerns the breakdown by fund, ERDF was the principal fund affected by decommitments also in 2015: N+2/N+3 targets were not met by four territorial cooperation programmes, seven OPs in the RCE Objective, four OPs in the Convergence Objective and one OP in both Convergence and RCE Objectives, leading to reductions of EUR 8.6 million, EUR 31.1 million, EUR million and EUR 9.7 million respectively. The total decommitted amount related to ERDF is EUR 369 million, approximately 41.3% of the 2014 target for the OPs concerned. For the ESF, fourteen OPs - twelve in the RCE Objective and two in the Convergence Objective - were affected, with a reduction of EUR 98.1 million and EUR 31.1 million respectively. The total amount de-committed related to ESF is EUR million, approximately 39.3% of 2014 target for the OPs concerned. For both ERDF and ESF the de-commitment figures include also late de-commitments of amounts related to commitment tranches. As concerns the breakdown by N+2/N+3, the total amount de-committed under the N+2 rule was EUR million, while the total amount de-committed under the N+3 rule was EUR million Cumulative N+2/N+3 de-commitments made by the end of 2015 The lower the part of the commitments that is lost over time, the more successful a programme is in making use of the respective financial allocation of the period The corresponding performance indicator is the share of total accumulated de-commitments (implemented from 2011 to 2015) in the value of the cumulative N+2/N+3 target at end 2014 (i.e. commitment tranches 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 plus 5/6 of the 2007 tranche for N+2 and N+3 countries). This total does not yet include the de-commitments to be made in 2016 following the N+3 calculation at the end of 2015 (the N+3 rule applies in 2015 only to Croatia, Romania and Slovakia). The total amount de-committed under the N+2/N+3 rule up to 2015 was EUR 1.35 billion or 0.5% of the end 2014 cumulative target. The de-committed amount is equivalent to 0.4% of the total commitments of the period programmes were affected by the automatic de-commitment rule

37 As concerns the breakdown by fund, ERDF was the principal fund affected by decommitments up to 2015: 13 territorial cooperation programmes lost a total amount of EUR 53 million, 13 OPs in the RCE Objective lost a total of EUR 79.7 million, 8 OPs in the Convergence Objective lost EUR 634 million and an OP related to RCE and Convergence lost EUR 30.2 million. The total cumulative de-committed amount related to ERDF is thus EUR million, approximately 9.2% of the end 2014 cumulative targets for the OPs concerned. For the ESF, 19 OPs were affected: 12 OPs in the RCE Objective lost EUR million, 4 in the Convergence Objective lost EUR 44.3 million and another 3 in sharing both Objectives lost EUR million. The total cumulative de-committed amount related to ESF is thus EUR million, approximately 4.7% of the end 2014 cumulative targets for the OPs concerned. For the Cohesion Fund, only two OPs were affected, losing EUR million, approximately 3.8% of its end 2014 cumulative target. Table 13: n+2/n+3 de-commitments by Fund as of 31/12/2015 (in EUR million) De-commitments De-commitment year TOTAL ESF 7,5 2,5 5,9 203,6 129,2 348,7 ERDF 2,2 18,7 183,5 223,5 369,0 796,9 CF 0,0 0,0 30,2 174,2 0,0 204,5 TOTAL 9,6 21,2 219,6 601,4 498, ,1 This table does not include yet the de-commitments that will be made in 2016 after the contradictory procedure as a result of the N+3 target at the end of MEMBER STATES PAYMENT FORECASTS FOR THE PERIOD In the past, in accordance with the regulations on Cohesion Policy Funds, national authorities submitted by 30 April their forecasts of requests for payments for the current and following year, by Programme and Fund. For the programming period this requirement is made under Article 76(3) of the General Regulation. Starting from 2015, for the purpose of simplification and ensuring coherence between the data of the two programming periods and , Member States have anticipated the submission of their forecasts for the programming period to 31 January (which is the new deadline for the submission of data on the programming period under Article 112(3) of the CPR). Table 14 below presents the 2015 Member States' forecasting errors listed by country for the programmes for EU-28. Relative forecast errors are used in the analysis, i.e. the forecasting error by a Member State for a given year measured in percentage of the actual payment claims submitted by that Member State during the same year. This approach has proven to be more appropriate than the one used before 2012 based on the comparison between forecast and payments made to Member States: the recurrent lack of payment appropriations at the end of the year would make the interpretation of forecast errors based on the comparison with payments less conclusive. The overall forecasting error was an overestimation of 14%, higher than the 2014 error (11% overestimation), but the situation varies widely across Member States. The significant

38 underestimation by some countries partially counterbalanced high overestimation by other countries. Therefore in 2015 the general trend of overestimation observed during the previous years was confirmed. Malta and Romania had the highest overestimation reaching 255% and 211% respectively but, for Malta, this did not have a major impact on the total forecast error (its claims represent 0.1% of the total claims received). In absolute value, the countries with the highest overestimation are Romania, Spain and Italy. Their overestimation rates are 211%, 156%, and 109% respectively, which determined a major increase in the general forecast error, as the 2015 payment requests relating to Romania represent 5.3% of the total claims, those relating to Spain represent 4.5%, and those relating to Italy represent 6%. On the other hand, it should be noted that 17 countries underestimated their payment forecasts (in the interval from -1% to -100%). Their estimations significantly counterbalanced the general trend of overestimation, as the payment claims of these countries represent 60% in the total payment claims. Overall, as concerns the accuracy of forecasts, only 3 Member States have had error rates of less than 5% (Poland, Latvia and Slovakia). The update of payment forecasts, submitted by the Member States by 31 July , involved a reduction to the total forecast amount by EUR 2.3 billion down to EUR 43.8 billion. This reduction of the payment forecasts was the net result of total increases by EUR 2.4 billion from 10 MSs and Territorial Cooperation and total decreases by EUR 4.7 billion from another 12 MSs (6 MSs did not modify their forecasts in July). The highest reduction came from Romania which decreased its forecast by EUR 2.8 billion. Taking into account this reduction, Romania switches from an overestimation of 211% in January as mentioned above to an overestimation of 80% in September. With an average overestimation of 9%, the update of forecasts in July was EUR 3.5 billion higher than the total amount of claims actually submitted by MSs between January and December. Consequently the accuracy rate in 2015 updated forecasts is significantly lower than in the previous years. However, this average remains the sum of over and underestimation between the various Member States and between operational programmes within a same Member State. The above figures are referring to the forecasts of the overall requests for payments sent by Member States in This figure does not always coincide with the payment requests actually payable by the Commission within the two months deadline indicated by the Regulation 1083/ Indeed, according to Article 79 of Regulation 1083/ , the Commission shall pay the payment claims till the total of pre-financing and interim payments for a programme reaches 19 This deadline is set by Article 112(3) of Regulation 1303/2013 for payment forecasts related to the programming period. In 2015, Member States aligned the submission of the mid-year update for the programming period forecasts (previously provided each year in September) to the new deadline for the programming period. 20 Article 87 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 lays down that " 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". 21 Article 79 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 lays down that "The cumulative total of pre-financing and interim payments made by the Commission shall not exceed 95% of the seven-year contribution from the Funds to the Operational Programme; the remaining 5% will only be paid at the closure of the Operational Programme."

39 95% of the allocation of the programme. Once this threshold is reached, the Member State can continue sending its payment requests but these are not paid by the Commission until the closure of the programme. They are used to clear the outstanding pre-financing in the Commission's accounts. As more and more programmes reach the 95% ceiling, this distinction is quite significant: the difference between the overall claims submitted in 2015 by the Member States (EUR 40.3 billion, used in the comparison with forecasts in Table 14), and the claims payable by the Commission (EUR 25.1 billion) is EUR 15.2 billion. This difference represents the claims to be paid only at the closure of the related operational programmes. Like the forecasts of total claims to be submitted in 2015, also the forecasts of payment requests actually payable by the Commission as interim payments were significantly overestimated. In the July update, MS forecast to send EUR 31.5 billion of payable claims, while the actual amount submitted was EUR 25.1 billion (25% over-estimation). In absolute value, the countries with the highest overestimation are Italy, Romania and Spain, counting for EUR 5.5 billion of the total EUR 6.4 billion over-estimated. This significant deviation from the actual payable claims submitted, unusual in the forecasts provided in the second part of the year, contributes to explain why the Commission had also during the autumn over-estimated the final claims to be expected at the end of the year and, consequently, also the end of the year backlog of unpaid claims, which was lower than forecast

40 Table 14: Forecasting errors by EU-28 in 2015 for programmes (in EUR million) * 2015 Forecasts* Payment requests Difference Difference % AT % BE % BG % CY % CZ % DE % DK % EE % ES % FI % FR % GR % HR % HU % IE % IT % LT % LU % LV % MT % NL % PL % PT % RO % SE % SI % SK % UK % CB % TOTAL % Data as 03/03/

41 4 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PERIOD The financial framework for the Structural Funds for the programming period (former Heading 2a) consisted of the allocation for the EU-15 MS decided in 1999 and the allocation for the EU-10 MS decided in By the end of 2015, operational programmes with combined allocations equivalent to 80% of the global allocation had already been closed. 4.1 PAYMENTS AND RECONSTITUTIONS FOR PROGRAMMES IN 2015 The closure of the programmes continued in 2015 as shown in Table 15. While the reduction of outstanding commitments was mainly achieved through de-commitments rather than closure payments, the overall rate of reduction of RAL was somewhat higher than in As no payment appropriations were foreseen in the Budget 2015 for the programmes, closure payments were made in most cases using additional appropriations from assigned revenue. Further reinforcements were required for ERDF and EAGGF towards the end of the year and they were carried out using the credits available for the new programming period. ERDF Objective 1 received a reinforcement of EUR million from ERDF LDR, while a transfer of EUR 6.70 million from the new rural development programmes was conducted in order to reinforce the EAGGF Objective 1 line. Table 15: Payments: available appropriations and their implementation for programmes and evolution of the RAL (in EUR million) Budget item Title Initial Budget Amending Budgets Transfers Other additional appropriations* Total available Total execution RAL 1/01/2015 Changes of RAL** RAL 31/12/ ESF Objective ESF - PEACE p.m ESF Objective 2 p.m ESF - Objective EQUAL ESF - TA and Innovative Measures p.m Total ESF ERDF Objective ERDF - PEACE p.m ERDF Objective URBAN ERDF - TA and Innovative Measures p.m Interreg III Total ERDF , Total Heading 1B , , EAGGF Objective EAGGF - PEACE p.m Leader p.m EAGGF - Operational TA p.m Total EAGGF FIFG Objective FISH - PEACE p.m FIFG outside Obj FIFG - Operational TA and Innovative Measures Total FIFG Total Heading * Assigned revenue and appropriations made available again ** Recommitted & Decommitted & Cancelled T o tal , ,

42 Following a final judgement of the Court of Justice, the Commission lost cases concerning financial corrections at the closure for 3 Spanish programmes and 2 German programmes under the ERDF envelope for the programming period. While the Court's ruling was based on procedural aspects (financial correction decisions being adopted more than 6 months after the hearings with the MS) and the arguments regarding the substance of the financial corrections have not been considered in the final judgement, the Commission had to proceed with the corresponding reimbursements. Thus, before the end of 2015 a total of EUR million were paid in favour of ERDF pre-2000 programmes using assigned revenue derived from new financial corrections linked to the programmes. The remaining balance of EUR million shall be paid in 2016 by reconstituting the necessary commitment appropriations following de-commitments made in For the following analysis of closure, programmes are considered as closed in budgetary terms when the final payment has been processed and the commitment has been brought to zero through final payment and/or de-commitment. Multi-fund programmes are considered as individual programmes for each fund concerned, which results in a total number of 830 OPs. Following the above mentioned criteria, 92% (765 OPs) of the programmes have been closed by the end of These 765 OPs represent EUR billion (80%) of the original total allocation. For these 765 programmes closed by the end of 2015, overall 2.2% of their initial allocation was de-committed. As can be seen in Chart 11, the closure process advanced at a particularly fast pace for the FIFG and the ERDF for which the OPs closed in 2015 account for 10.2% and 10% of those funds respective allocations. Chart 11: Progress of closure of total allocation per fund for the period as of end 2015 (in EUR billion) ERDF ESF EAGGF FIFG Still to close Closed in 2015 Closed <

43 4.2 CUMULATIVE DE-COMMITMENTS AT THE END OF 2015 (FOR ) This chapter presents the cumulative N+2 de-commitments together with the decommitments related to closure. For the programming period N+2 de-commitments are regulated by article 31.2 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999, known as the N+2 rule. The implementing rules are set in Commission Communication C(2002)1942, as amended by Commission Communication C(2003)2982. The last N+2 de-commitment exercise was in respect of 2005 commitments, at the end of There was no N+2 de-commitment for 2006 commitments. The de-commitment cases for 2006 commitments are treated in the framework of the closure exercise. It should be noted that the closure de-commitments can be: a) final closure de-commitments, when the final commitment is brought to zero, any balance due is paid and therefore the programmes closed from the budgetary point of view; the Commission has already analysed the certified expenditure (see also chapter 4.1 above) or b) preliminary closure de-commitments, representing the difference between the outstanding commitments and the amount of the certified expenditure declared together with the closure documents. The Commission is still in the process of analysing the certified expenditure; in the situation of a partial approval of the certified expenditure, the amount not approved will also be de-committed later. In order to measure the effect of de-commitments, the performance indicator used is the share of total accumulated N+2 de-commitments (from 2003 to 2008) on top of which are added the closure de-commitments (from 2010 to 2015), in the value of total commitments ( ). The average de-commitments so far are equivalent to 2.22% of the total commitments of the period , (N+2: 0.56%, closure: 1.66%). In absolute terms the cumulative amount of de-commitments has reached EUR 5 billion so far (of which EUR 1.3 billion were N+2 decommitments and another EUR 3.7 billion were closure de-commitments). Using the indicator of de-commitments relative to total commitments, the following 3 charts give the (cumulative) situation by Member State, Fund and Objective, respectively

44 Chart 12: Relative significance of the cumulative de-commitments up to the end of 2015, by Member State 20% 18% 16% closure de-commitments in % of commitments Cumulative N+2 de-commitments (2003 to 2008) in % of 2000 to 2006 Commitments 14% 12% 10% 8% 6% 4% Average= 2,22% 2% 0% By Fund, as of the end of 2015, the ERDF and the EAGGF have de-commitments which are lower than the average. As in the last years, the FIFG is still indicated as having the highest cumulative de-commitments with 8.4% of 2000 to 2006 commitments. Following the relevant closure de-commitments experienced in the last three years, there is now a near balance between FIFG closure de-commitments and de-commitments related to the application of the N+2 rule. To the contrary, for the ESF high closure de-commitments reaching 2.69% of commitments already account for ¾ of total ESF de-commitments. Chart 13: Relative significance of the cumulative de-commitments up to the end of 2015, by Fund

45 By objective, the de-commitments as of the end of 2015 are below the average of 2.22% for Objective 1 only; for Objective 2 they are not far above the average, whereas for all of the other objectives/initiatives the de-commitments are significantly above average. Chart 14: Relative significance of the cumulative de-commitments up to the end of 2015 by Objective 4.3 OUTSTANDING COMMITMENTS FROM THE PROGRAMMING PERIOD Evolution of outstanding commitments in 2015 In 2015, the RAL from the programming period declined further with an overall decrease of 35%, from EUR 1.8 billion to EUR 1.2 billion (see Table 16 below). While more operational programmes approach completion, the weight of de-commitments in the decrease of outstanding commitments becomes more significant than that of closure payments. Thus, closure de-commitments (EUR 526 million) accounted for 81% of the reduction of the RAL while the remaining 19% was the result of payments (EUR 120 million). The closure of these programmes will continue in Table 16: Outstanding commitments from at the end of 2015* (in EUR million) Outstanding commitments at the end of De-commitments in 2015 on RAL at the end of Payments in 2015 on outstanding commitments at the end of (1) TOTAL outstanding commitments from before New commitments made in Payments on 2015 commitments 0 (2) TOTAL outstanding commitments from (1)+(2) TOTAL outstanding commitments at the end of * only operational lines

46 4.3.2 Breakdown of outstanding commitments by Member State Chart 15 presents total outstanding commitments at the end of 2015 by Member State. As in the previous year, at the end of 2015 Italy remains the Member State with the highest RAL followed at quite some distance by Germany. Due to a reduction by less than 23% of its outstanding commitments in 2015 (below the 35% average reduction), Italy's part of total RAL has increased further from 45.4% in 2014 to 53.7% at the end of last year. Similarly, the slow reduction of RAL for German programmes in 2015 translated into an increase of the Member States' share of overall outstanding commitments compared to the end of 2014, while the RAL for Ireland, Slovakia and Hungary remained unchanged in Significant progress in the reduction of outstanding commitments could be observed for Portugal (-98.5%), United Kingdom (-96.7%) and Greece (-66.1%), well in excess of the general decrease of the RAL At the end of 2015, the outstanding commitments for Dutch programmes were brought to zero. As a result of the relatively lower progress of residual closure, the three Member States with the highest RAL accounted for more than 80% of total outstanding commitments at the end of 2015, up from about 70% at the end of Chart 15: Outstanding commitments by Member State at the end of 2015 (in EUR million) ( period) IT DE ES GR IE Other FR PL SK CZ UK BE HU SE PT

47 OVERVIEW OF CHARTS Chart 1: Heading 1b commitments relative share by type of region, Fund and objective Chart 2: Heading commitments relative share by Fund (EUR million) Chart 3: Concentration of payments in December (percentage executed in December) since Chart 4: Monthly pattern of cumulative interim payment claim submission for the period between 2013 and 2015 (in % of the total) Chart 5: Evolution of unpaid payment claims at the end of the year for period between 2010 and 2015 (in EUR billion) Chart 6: Monthly implementation patterns of payments in (%) for the period Chart 7: Cumulative execution of advance and interim payments at the end of 2015 by EU-28 Member States (compared to the national allocation available for the period incl. reserves and pt17iia) Chart 8: Cumulative EU-28 execution of advance and interim payments at the end of 2015 by objective and fund, compared to the overall allocation available for the period (including reserves and pt17 IIA) Chart 9: Outstanding commitments by Member State at the end of 2015 for the period (in EUR million) Chart 10: Ratio RAL at end 2015 / average yearly commitments Chart 11: Progress of closure of total allocation per fund for the period as of end 2015 (in EUR billion) Chart 12: Relative significance of the cumulative de-commitments up to the end of 2015, by Member State Chart 13: Relative significance of the cumulative de-commitments up to the end of 2015, by Fund Chart 14: Relative significance of the cumulative de-commitments up to the end of 2015 by Objective Chart 15: Outstanding commitments by Member State at the end of 2015 (in EUR million) ( period)

48 OVERVIEW OF TABLES Table 1: Heading 1b commitments by type of region, Fund and objective (EUR million) Table 2: Heading 1b transfers of unused allocations from 2014 to subsequent years (EUR million) Table 3: Heading 2 transfers of unused allocations from 2014 to subsequent years (EUR million) Table 4: Heading 1b annual allocations after MFF revision in 2014 prices (EUR million) Table 5: Heading 2 annual breakdown of commitments in 2014 prices (EUR million) Table 6: Adopted operational programmes and status of designation of authorities per Fund at 31 December Table 7: Outstanding commitments at the end of 2015* (in EUR million) Table 8: Outturn of Commitment Appropriations for the period in 2015* by Fund (in EUR million) Table 9: Outturn of Payment Appropriations in 2015* by Fund (in EUR million) Table 10: Payment applications received in 2015 and unpaid applications at year-end for period (in EUR billion) Table 11: Payments - available appropriations and their implementation in 2015 for the period (in EUR million) Table 12: Outstanding commitments at the end of 2015* (in EUR million) Table 13: n+2/n+3 de-commitments by Fund as of 31/12/2015 (in EUR million) Table 14: Forecasting errors by EU-28* in 2015 for programmes (in EUR million) Table 15: Payments: available appropriations and their implementation for programmes and evolution of the RAL (in EUR million) Table 16: Outstanding commitments from at the end of 2015* (in EUR million)

49 - 47 -

50 ANNEXES ANNEX 1: IMPLEMENTATION BY BUDGET LINES IN 2015 ANNEX 2: COMMISSION TRANSFERS IN 2015 ANNEX 3: N+2/N+3 DECOMMITMENTS IN 2015 ANNEX 4: HISTORICAL TREND IN COMMITMENTS AND PAYMENTS ANNEX 5: HISTORIC ANALYSIS OF MEMBER STATES PAYMENT FORECASTS ANNEX 6: HEADING 1B ALLOCATION BY MEMBER STATE ANNEX 7: HEADING ALLOCATION BY MEMBER STATE [EXCEPT EAGGF] ANNEX 8: LIST OF ADOPTED PROGRAMMES BY MEMBER STATE ANNEX 9: LIST OF ADOPTED PROGRAMMES BY MEMBER SATE AND BY FUND ANNEX 10: REFERENCES

51 ANNEX 1: IMPLEMENTATION BY BUDGET LINES IN

52 ANNEX 1 : IMPLEMENTATION BY BUDGET LINES IN STRUCTURAL FUNDS Financial year 2015: Outturn of Commitment Appropriations on by budget item Source C2 provisional outturn reports at date of 27/01/2016 in EUR BUDGET ADDITIONAL APPROPR. TOTAL ITEM HEADING VOTED BUDGET TRANSFERS & AMENDING BUDGET TOTAL OUTTURN % CARRY OVER, OUTTURN ASSIGNED REVENUE, RECONSTITUTIONS TOTAL APPROPRIATONS OUTTURN % = = 4/ = = =9/8 PRE-2000 programming periods ESF - Former Objectives 1 and 6 p.m ESF - Former Objectives 2 and 5b p.m ESF - Former Objectives 3 and 4 p.m ESF - Community Initiatives (prior to 2000) p.m ESF - TA and Innovative measures , , % EAGGF - Former Objectives 1 and 6 p.m , , % EAGGF - Former Objective 5b p.m ,694, ,694, % EAGGF - Former Objective 5a p.m , , % EAGGF - Community intitiatives (prior to 2000) p.m , , % EAGGF - Completion of earlier innovative measures (prior to 2000) p.m , , % FIFG - Former Objectives 1 and 6 p.m FIFG - Community Initiatives (prior to 2000) p.m ERDF - Former Objectives 1 and 6 p.m ,962, ,962, ,962, ,962, % ERDF - Former Objectives 2 and 5b p.m ,884,692 27,884,692 27,884,692 27,884, % ERDF - Community initiatives (prior to 2000) p.m ERDF - TA and Innovative Measures (prior to 2000) p.m TOTAL PRE ,460, ,846, ,460, ,846, % Programming period ESF Objective 1 p.m ESF - PEACE p.m ESF Objective 2 p.m ESF - Objective 3 p.m , , % EQUAL p.m ESF - TA and Innovative Measures EAGGF Objective 1 p.m ,074, ,074, % EAGGF - PEACE p.m Leader p.m , , % EAGGF - Operational TA p.m FIFG Objective 1 p.m ,897, ,897, % FISH - PEACE p.m FIFG outside Obj 1 p.m ,301, ,301, % ERDF Objective 1 p.m ERDF - PEACE p.m ERDF Objective 2 p.m URBAN p.m ERDF - TA and Innovative Measures p.m Interreg III p.m TOTAL ,150, ,150, % Programming period ESF - Convergence ESF - Regional competitiveness and employment ESF - Operational TA , , % ERDF - Convergence ERDF - PEACE ERDF - Regional competitivess and employment ERDF - European territorial co-operation ERDF - Operational TA ERDF - Operational TA Baltic Sea Strategy Cohesion Fund TOTAL , , % programming period ESF - Expenditure on adm. management 15,400, ,400,000 12,540, % ,400,739 12,540, % ESF Less developed regions 6,500,532,038 1,089,707,479 7,590,239,517 7,590,239, % 1,675,795,878 1,675,795,878 9,266,035,395 9,266,035, % ESF Transition regions 1,668,335, ,915,981 1,992,251,367 1,992,251, % 28,472,415 28,472,415 2,020,723,782 2,020,723, % ESF More developed regions 2,675,531,087 1,261,311,051 3,936,842,138 3,936,842, % 276,750, ,750,075 4,213,592,213 4,213,592, % ESF Operational TA 14,700, ,700,000 11,801, % ,700,000 11,801, % ESF Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) 1,407,161,806 97,409,219 1,504,571,025 1,504,571, % 132,290, ,290,556 1,636,861,581 1,636,861, % FEAD -Expenditure on adm. Management 425, , , % , , % FEAD 523,247, ,247, ,247, % 12,203,892 12,203, ,451, ,451, % FEAD - Operational TA 1,410, ,410, , % 0 0 1,410, , % EAFRD Expenditure on admin management 4,450, ,450,000 4,128, % 0 0 4,450,000 4,128, % EAFRD - Rural development programmes ,796,873,677 4,352,663,052 18,149,536,729 18,149,536, % 1,970,095,304 1,970,095,304 20,119,632,033 20,119,632, % EAFRD - Operational TA 22,292,400-6,500,000 15,792,400 12,520, % ,793,333 12,520, % EAFRD - Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS EMFF - Expenditure on adm. management 3,622, ,000 3,415,610 3,415, % 0 0 3,415,610 3,415, % EMFF - sustainable and competitive fisheries 798,128, ,724,593 1,538,852,624 1,538,852, % 28,169,090 28,169,090 1,567,021,714 1,567,021, % EMFF - Operational TA 4,300, ,300,000 4,210, % 0 0 4,300,000 4,210, % EMFF- Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS ERDF - Expenditure on adm. management 11,300, ,300,000 11,271, % ,300,331 11,271, % CF- Expenditure on adm. management 4,200, ,200,000 4,190, % 0 0 4,200,000 4,190, % ERDF Less developed regions 17,702,784,879 4,511,547,071 22,214,331,950 22,214,331, % 3,925,485,651 3,925,485,651 26,139,817,601 26,139,817, % ERDF Transition regions 3,185,884,426 1,322,832,006 4,508,716,432 4,508,716, % 365,931, ,931,880 4,874,648,312 4,874,648, % ERDF More developed regions 4,853,554, ,600,388 5,218,154,756 5,218,154, % 1,250,818,593 1,250,818,593 6,468,973,349 6,468,973, % ERDF Outermost and sparsely populated regions 213,401,352 65,119, ,520, ,520, % ,520, ,520, % ERDF European territorial cooperation (ETC) 720,820, ,121, ,941, ,941, % 50,624,280 50,624,280 1,037,565,751 1,037,565, % ERDF Operational TA 72,000, ,000,000 61,249, % ,000,000 61,249, % ERDF Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS 0 200, , , % , , % ERDF Innovative Actions in the field of Sustainable Urban Development 51,028, ,028,945 51,028, % ,028,945 51,028, % ERDF- European strategy for the Baltic Sea region Technical assistance ERDF- European Union strategy for the Danube region Technical assistance Cohesion Fund 8,346,548,261 1,826,702,791 10,173,251,052 10,173,251, % 761,296, ,296,791 10,934,547,843 10,934,547, % Cohesion Fund Operational TA 24,000, ,000,000 20,673, % ,000,000 20,673, % Cohesion Fund Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS TOTAL ,621,932,243 16,216,147,223 78,838,079,466 78,813,882, % 10,477,936,409 10,477,934,405 89,316,015,875 89,291,817, % Total 62,621,932,243 16,216,147,223 78,838,079,466 78,813,882, % 10,892,751,234 10,823,781,235 89,730,830,700 89,637,664, %

53 ANNEX 1 : IMPLEMENTATION BY BUDGET LINES IN STRUCTURAL FUNDS Financial year 2015: Outturn of Payment Appropriations on by budget item Source: C2 provisional outturn reports at date of 27/01/2016 in EUR BUDGET ADDITIONAL APPROPR. ITEM HEADING VOTED BUDGET TRANSFERS & TOTAL OUTTURN % CARRY OVER, OUTTURN AMENDING ASSIGNED BUDGET REVENUE, RECONSTITUTIONS TOTAL APPROPRIATIONS TOTAL OUTTURN % = = 4/ = = =9/8 Pre-2000 programming periods ESF - Former Objectives 1 and 6 p.m ESF - Former Objectives 2 and 5b p.m ESF - Former Objectives 3 and 4 p.m ESF - Community Initiatives (prior to 2000) p.m ESF - TA and Innovative measures , , % EAGGF - Former Objectives 1 and 6 p.m EAGGF - Former Objective 5b p.m EAGGF - Former Objective 5a p.m , , % EAGGF - Community intitiatives (prior to 2000) p.m EAGGF - Completion of earlier innovative measures (prior to 2000) p.m , , % FIFG - Former Objectives 1 and 6 p.m FIFG - Former Objectives 1 and 6 p.m FIFG - Community Initiatives (prior to 2000) p.m ERDF - Former Objectives 1 and 6 p.m. 187,572, ,572, ,572, % 130,389, ,389, ,962, ,962, % ERDF - Former Objectives 2 and 5b p.m ,884,692 27,884,692 27,884,692 27,884, % ERDF - Community initiatives (prior to 2000) p.m ERDF - TA and Innovative measures (prior to 2000) p.m TOTAL PRE ,572, ,572, ,572, % 158,514, ,274, ,087, ,846, % programming period ESF Objective ,657, ,657, % ESF - PEACE p.m ESF Objective 2 p.m ESF - Objective , , , , % EQUAL ESF - TA and Innovative Measures p.m EAGGF Objective 1 6,700,484 6,700,484 6,700,484 57,512,750 57,492,251 64,213,235 64,192, % 99.97% EAGGF - PEACE p.m Leader p.m , , % EAGGF - Operational TA p.m FIFG Objective ,363, ,363, % FISH - PEACE p.m FIFG outside Obj ,062, ,062, % FIFG - Operational TA and Innovative Measures ERDF Objective ,870,966 13,870,966 13,870, % 38,175,620 38,175,620 52,046,585 52,046, % ERDF - PEACE p.m ERDF Objective ,986,950 2,986,950 2,986,950 2,986, % URBAN ERDF - TA and Innovative Measures p.m Interreg III TOTAL ,571,450 20,571,450 20,571, % 182,419,707 99,045, ,991, ,616, % programming period ESF - Convergence 4,917,020, ,387,168 5,068,407,168 5,068,407, % 17,393,333 17,393,333 5,085,800,501 5,085,800, % ESF - Regional competitiveness and employment 2,357,168, ,665,750 2,575,833,985 2,575,833, % 0 0 2,575,833,985 2,575,833, % ESF - Operational TA 5,752,675-4,649,727 1,102,948 1,102, % 3,222,143 2,080,688 4,325,092 3,183, % ERDF - Convergence 18,115,473, ,727,019 18,918,200,773 18,918,200, % ,918,200,773 18,918,200, % ERDF - PEACE 22,253, ,253,265 22,253, % 9,642,963 9,642,963 31,896,228 31,896, % ERDF - Regional competitivess and employment 2,845,465, ,006,377 3,637,471,602 3,637,471, % 0 0 3,637,471,602 3,637,471, % ERDF - European territorial co-operation 774,962, ,721,763 1,005,683,810 1,005,683, % 0 0 1,005,683,810 1,005,683, % ERDF - Operational TA 5,752,675-2,287,681 3,464,994 3,464, % 0 0 3,464,994 3,464, % ERDF - Operational TA Baltic Sea Strategy 167, , Cohesion Fund ,487,806,882 21,535,609 10,509,342,491 10,509,342, % ,509,342,491 10,509,342, % TOTAL ,531,822,318 2,209,938,718 41,741,761,036 41,741,761, % 30,258,440 29,116,984 41,772,019,476 41,770,878, % programming period ESF - Expenditure on adm. management 15,400, ,400,000 6,695, % 7,585,436 6,272,075 22,985,436 12,967, % ESF Less developed regions 1,029,000,000-33,567, ,432, ,432, % ,432, ,432, % ESF Transition regions 284,757,420-88,820, ,936, ,936, % ,936, ,936, % ESF More developed regions 583,896, ,665, ,230, ,230, % ,230, ,230, % ESF Operational TA 8,629,013-2,900,000 5,729,013 5,727, % 0 0 5,729,013 5,727, % ESF Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS 0 1,651,885 1,651,885 1,651, % 1,651,885 1,651, % Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) 1,026,479,465 8,576,921 1,035,056,386 1,035,056, % 0 0 1,035,056,386 1,035,056, % FEAD -Expenditure on adm. management 425, , , % , , % FEAD 362,116, ,677,964 45,438,843 45,438, % ,438,843 45,438, % FEAD - Operational TA 958, , ,779 1, % ,779 1, % EAFRD Expenditure on admin management 4,450, ,450,000 2,291, % 1,399,894 1,396,093 5,849,894 3,687, % EAFRD - Rural development programmes ,252,192, ,252,192,422 5,252,192, % 0 0 5,252,192,422 5,252,192, % EAFRD - Operational TA 19,770,986-8,835,269 10,935,717 8,785, % ,936,651 8,786, % EAFRD - Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS EMFF - Expenditure on adm. management 3,622, ,000 3,415,610 2,518, % 995, ,464 4,410,845 3,348, % EMFF - sustainable and competitive fisheries 138,235,825-3,748, ,487, ,487, % ,487, ,487, % EMFF - Operational TA 2,697, ,272 2,528,268 2,520, % 0 0 2,528,268 2,520, % EMFF- Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS ERDF - Expenditure on adm. management 11,300, ,300,000 4,803, % 6,278,871 5,671,763 17,578,871 10,475, % ERDF Less developed regions 3,742,700,000-1,293,656,046 2,449,043,954 2,449,043, % 0 0 2,449,043,954 2,449,043, % ERDF Transition regions 607,866,009-18,447, ,418, ,418, % ,418, ,418, % ERDF More developed regions 925,413,678 27,903, ,317, ,317, % ,317, ,317, % ERDF Outermost and sparsely populated regions 37,296,511-11,868,027 25,428,484 25,428, % ,428,484 25,428, % ERDF European territorial cooperation (ETC) 263,856,034-98,914, ,941, ,941, % ,941, ,941, % ERDF Operational TA 57,526,752-31,424,474 26,102,278 26,102, % ,102,278 26,102, % ERDF-Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS ERDF Innovative Actions in the field of Sustainable Urban Development 48,418,349 32,427,509 80,845,858 80,845, % ,845,858 80,845, % ERDF- European strategy for the Baltic Sea region Technical assistance 479,390 1,141,775 1,621,165 1,621, % 0 0 1,621,165 1,621, % ERDF- European Union strategy for the Danube region Technical assistance 1,198,474 51,526 1,250,000 1,250, % 0 0 1,250,000 1,250, % CF - Expenditure on adm. management 4,200, ,200,000 1,939, % 2,185,610 2,051,578 6,385,610 3,991, % Cohesion Fund 1,641,334, ,298,301 1,216,035,800 1,216,035, % 0 0 1,216,035,800 1,216,035, % Cohesion Fund Operational TA 20,134,363-10,129,966 10,004,397 10,004, % ,004,397 10,004, % Cohesion Fund Operational TA managed by the COM at request of a MS 0 400, , , % , , % TOTAL ,094,356,057-2,491,977,662 13,602,378,395 13,579,226, % 18,445,979 16,221,906 13,620,824,374 13,595,448, % Total 55,626,178,375-73,895,135 55,552,283,240 55,529,131, % 389,638, ,658,457 55,941,922,238 55,831,790, %

54 ANNEX 2: COMMISSION TRANSFERS IN 2015

55 ANNEX II LIST OF COMMISSION TRANSFERS EXECUTED BY THE SF TEAM OF DG BUDG/A2 IN 2015 P a y m e n t s Not SF Transfer Origin Description Amount Destination Description Amount Request SI2.code Reason of budget line Withdrawn of budget line Reinforced PP Tow ards a common regional identity, reconciliation of nations and economic and VIC CP FROM ERDF PP DANUBE MACRO-REGION c1 social cooperation including a Pan-European -122, c1 Baltic Sea region 122,294 6/03/15 SI : TA ( ) ( ) TO ERDF BALTIC SEA REGION TA ( ) Expertise and Excellence Platform in the Danube macro-region VIC C4 CP FROM ERDF OBJ2( C4) TO ERDF c4 ERDF Objective 2 (2000 to 2006) -4,429, C4 ERDF Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) 4,429,783 6/03/15 SI OBJ1( C4) PP Tow ards a common regional identity, reconciliation of nations and economic and social cooperation including a Pan-European Expertise and Excellence Platform in the Danube macro-region -228, : Baltic Sea region TA ( ) 228,255 8/04/15 SI VIC CP FROM PILOT PROJECT ERDF ( ) TO ERDF BALTIC SEA TA( ) PA The definition of governance model for -51, : Danube region TA ( ) 51,526 18/05/15 SI VIC CP FROM PA-DANUBE( ) TO TA-DANUBE ( ) ESF Operational TA (2007 to 2013) -500, ESF Operational TA managed by the Commission at the request of a Member State 500,000 26/06/15 SI VIC CP FROM ESF-OPERATIONAL TA ( ) TO ESF-OPERATIONAL TA REQUESTED BY MS ( ) ERDF European territorial cooperation(etc) ( ) ERDF ETC Contribution from Heading 4 (IPA II) -187, ( ) 187,116 ERDF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) ERDF Innovative Actions in the field of -27,427, Sustainable Urban Development ( ) 32,427,509 7/07/15 SI need for CP on pm lines ERDF Operational TA ( ) -5,000, ESF Operational TA managed by the Commission at the request of a Member State -2,000, ESF Operational TA (2007 to 2013) 2,000,000 27/07/15 SI VIC CP FROM ESF TA OPERATIONAL( ) TO ESF-TA OPERATIONAL( ) ERDF European territorial cooperation (ETC) ( ) -15,000, ERDF Regional competitiveness and employment ( ) 183,000,000 ERDF Transition regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) ERDF More developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -74,000, ,000,000 ERDF European territorial cooperation (ETC) ( ) 30,000,000 30/07/15 SI VIC CP FROM ERDF TR( ), ERDF MDR( ), ERDF ETC( ) AND ERDF ETC( ) TO ERDF RCE( ) AND ERDF ETC( ) ERDF European territorial cooperation(etc) ( ) -98,000, C4 INTERREG III Community initiative (2000 to 2006) -9,642, C4 ERDF PEACE ( ) 9,642,963 9/09/15 SI VIC C4 CP FROM INTEREG ( ) TO ERDF PEACE III ( ) CBC IPA Contribution from Subheading 1b -7,975, Cross-border cooperation (CBC) Contribution from Heading 1b ( ) 7,975,560 9/09/15 SI VICCP FROM IPA -CBC H1B CONTRIB ( ) TO IPA- CBC H1B CONTRIB ( ) Cohesion Fund (2007 to 2013) -500,000, ERDF Regional competitiveness and employment ( ) 370,000, ERDF European territorial cooperation (ETC) ( ) 117,308,447 21/09/15 SI VFO CP FROM CF( ) TO ERDF- RCE( ), ERDF-ETC( AND ) ERDF European territorial cooperation (ETC) ( ) 12,691, ERDF European territorial cooperation(etc) ( ) -812, ERDF ETC Contribution from Heading 4 (IPA II) ( ) 812,884 21/09/15 SI VIC CP FROM ERDF ETC ( ) TO ERDF ETC CONTRIB FROM H4( ) ERDF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -109,457, ERDF Transition regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) ERDF More developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) 55,553,000 53,904,000 28/09/15 SI VIC CP FROM ERDF-LDR( ) TO ERDF- TR( ) AND ERDF-MDR( ) CBC IPA Contribution from Subheading 1b -8,523, Cross-border cooperation (CBC) Contribution from Heading 1b ( ) 8,523,342 7/10/15 SI VIC CP FROM COMPLETION OF ERDF -PRIOR 2000( ) TO ERDF-CBC ( ) Cohesion Fund Operational TA managed by REGIO Cohesion Fund Operational TA ( ) -400, EMPL the Commission at the request of a Member State ( ) 400,000 12/10/15 SI VIC CP FROM CF-OPERATIONAL TA( REGIO) TO CF- OPRATIONAL TA MANAGED BY COMMISSION( EMPL) ERDF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -618,601, ERDF European territorial cooperation (ETC) ( ) 78,267,576 VIC CP FROM ERDF-LDR( ) TO ERDF ERDF European territorial cooperation (ETC) ( ) 7,454,187 19/11/15 SI ETC( , ) AND ERDF-CONV( ) ERDF Convergence ( ) 532,879, Promoting social cohesion and alleviating the w orst forms of poverty in the Union -22,000, Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) 22,000,000 3/12/15 SI VFO CP FROM FEAD ( ) TO YEI ( ) C5 ESF Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) -17,393, C5 ESF Convergence (2007 to 2013) 17,393,333 7/12/15 SI VIC CP C5 FROM ESF OBJ ( C5) TO ESF- CONVERGENCE ( C5) Cohesion Fund projects (prior to 2007) -86,507, Cohesion Fund (2007 to 2013) 511,805, Cohesion Fund Investment for grow th and -425,298,301 jobs goal ( ) 14/12/15 SI VIC CP FROM CF PRIOR 2007 ( ) AND CF( ) TO CF( ) ERDF Less developed regions Investment -220,597, ERDF Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) 13,870, ERDF Transition regions Investment for ERDF Convergence ( ) 109,503, ERDF More developed regions Investment Regional competitiveness and 109,006,377 ERDF ERDF Additional allocation for outermost and sparsely populated regions Investment for -11,868, ERDF European territorial cooperation(etc) 85,308 ( ) grow th and jobs goal ( ) 14/12/15 SI VIC CP FROM ERDF-LDR( ), ERDF-TR( ), ERDF-MDR( ) AND ERDF-OTMSPR( ) TO ERDF-CONVERGENCE( ), ERDF-RCE( ), ERDF-OBJ1( ) AND ERDF-ETC( ) ERDF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -187,572, ERDF - Objective 1 (prior to 2000) 187,572,359 14/12/15 SI VIC CP FROM ERDF-LDR( C1) TO PRIOR 2000 ERDF-OBJ1 ( C1) c4 ERDF Objective 2 (2000 to 2006) -151,778, c4 ERDF - Objective 1 (prior to 2000) 130,379,921 VIC CE + CP FROM ERDF-OBJ1( C4), ERDF c4 INTERREG III Community initiative (2000 to 2006) -954, c4 ERDF Objective 2 (prior to 2000) 22,485, c4 ERDF Community initiatives (prior to 2000) -132,196 14/12/15 SI OBJ2( C4), ERDF-ETC( C4) AND PRIOR 2000 COMMUNITY INITIATIVES( C4) TO PRIOR 2000 ERDF- OBJ1( C4) ANDERDF-OBJ2( C4) c5 ERDF TA and innovative measures (2000 to 2006) VIC CE + CP FROM ERDF-OBJ1( C5), ERDF- OBJ2( C5), URBAN( C5), ERDF -9, c5 ERDF - Objective 1 (prior to 2000) 9,859 14/12/15 SI TA+INNOVAT( C5) AND ERDF-ETC( C5) TO PRIOR 2000 ERDF-OBJ1( C5) ERDF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -2,632, ERDF Regional competitiveness and employment ( ) 2,632,785 16/12/15 SI VIC CP FROM ERDF-LDR( ) TO ERDF- RCE( ) ERDF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -127,367, ERDF Convergence ( ) 160,343, EMPL ERDF Operational TA ( ) -49, : Baltic Sea region TA ( ) 791, REGIO ERDF Operational TA ( ) -25,324, PA World cities: EU third countries 30,782 cooperation on urban development reserve ERDF Operational TA ( ) -1,050, PA Enhancing regional and local cooperation through the promotion of Union regional policy -545,758 on a global scale PA The definition of governance model for the European Union Danube Region better -1,287,098 and effective coordination PP Towards a common regional identity, reconciliation of nations and economic and social cooperation -638,003 including a Pan-European Expertise and Excellence Platform in the Danube macro-region PA Supporting Mayotte, or any other territory potentially affected, with the -25,347 16/12/15 SI VIC CP w ithin Chapter switchover to outermost-region status PA Towards a common regional identity, reconciliation of nations and economic and social cooperation including a Pan-European Expertise -722,438 and Excellence Platform in the Danube macro-region PP Cohesion Policy and the synergies with the research and development funds: the "stairway to -1,350,000 excellence" PA The actual and desired state of the economic potential in regions -350,000 outside the Greek capital Athens ERDF Operational TA ( ) -2,287, TA and Baltic Sea Region (2007 to 2013) -167, Cohesion Fund (2007 to 2013) -316, Cohesion Fund (2007 to 2013) 10,046,364 Cohesion Fund Operational TA ( ) -9,279,966 17/12/15 SI VIC CP w ithin Chapter Cohesion Fund Operational TA ( RESERVE 20) -450, Rural Development - Operational TA -2,134, EAFRD - Rural development programmes ,134,784 18/12/15 SI VIC CP WITHINCHAPTER RURAL DEVELOPMENT ESF Less developed regions Investment for growth and jobs goal -33,567, ESF Convergence (2007 to 2013) 141,709, ESF Transition regions Investment for growth and jobs goal -88,820, ESF Regional competitiveness and employment (2007 to 2013) 218,665,750 ESF More developed regions ,665,750 Investment for growth and jobs goal Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) -13,423,079 18/12/15 SI VIC CP WITHIN CHAPTER ESF Operational TA (2007 to 2013) -2,149, ESF Operational TA -2,900,000 ESF Operational TA managed by the Commission at the request of a -848,116 Member State Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived - TA -9,677, ESF Convergence (2007 to 2013) 9,677,964 18/12/2015 SI VFO <10%

56 ANNEX II LIST OF COMMISSION TRANSFERS EXECUTED BY THE SF TEAM OF DG BUDG/A2 IN 2015 Commitments Origin Description Amount Destination Description Amount Request SI2.code Reason of budget line Withdrawn of budget line Reinforced ERDF More developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -186,645, ESF More developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal 186,645,082 24/04/15 SI VIF CE FROM ERDF INVEST FOR JOBS-MDR( ) TO ESF INVEST FOR JOBS-MDR( ) ERDF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -577,658, ERDF Transition regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) 143,769,308 ERDF More developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -287,852, ESF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal 203,483,377 10/09/15 SI VIF REBALANCING OF CE BETWEEN ERDF(LDR, TR, MDR, ETC) AND ESF(LDR, TR, MDR) ERDF European territorial cooperation(etc) ( ) ESF Transition regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal -591, ,734,396 ESF More developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal 581,583, ERDF European territorial cooperation(etc) ( ) -44,281, CBC ENI Contribution from H1b (Regional Policy) (former lines , , 44,281,775 13/10/2015 SI VIF CE FROM ERDF ETC-CBC( ) TO CONTRIBUTION FROM H1B TO ENI-CBC( ) ESF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal -5,754, ESF More developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal 5,754,743 16/10/2015 SI VIC CE FROM ESF - LDR ( ) TO ESF MDR( ) ERDF More developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) -200, ERDF Operational TA managed by the Commission at the request of a Member State ( ) 200,000 27/10/2015 SI VIC CE 2014CY16M1OP001 tfr TA to Commission on behalf of Cyprus (TFCY) VIF CE C4 FROM ESF OBJ1( C4) TO ERDF c4 ESF Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) -72,553, c4 ERDF - Objective 1 (prior to 2000) 72,553,764 24/11/2015 SI PRIOR2000 OBJ1( C4) VIF CE C4 FROM ESF OBJ1( C4) TO PRE c4 ESF Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) -103, c4 ERDF - Objective 1 (prior to 2000) 103,864 27/11/2015 SI ERDF OBJ1( C4) VIF CE C5 FROM ESF OBJ1( C5) TO PRE C5 ESF Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) -32,103, C5 ERDF - Objective 1 (prior to 2000) 32,103,545 27/11/2015 SI ERDF OBJ1( C5) ERDF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) ERDF Transition regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal ( ) 1 02/12/2015 SI VIC CE FROM ERDF-TR ( ) TO ERDF-LDR( ) Cross-border cooperation (CBC) Contribution from Heading 1b ( ) -1,042, ERDF European territorial cooperation(etc) ( ) 1,042,689 02/12/2015 SI VFO CE FROM CBC CONTRIB FROM HEADING 1B ( ) TO ERDF-ETC( ) c4 ERDF Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) -33,745, c4 ERDF - Objective 1 (prior to 2000) 187,329, c4 ERDF Objective 2 (2000 to 2006) -159,195, c4 ERDF Objective 2 (prior to 2000) 16,341, c4 ERDF Community initiatives (prior to 2000) -132,196 14/12/2015 SI c4 INTERREG III Community initiative (2000 to 2006) -10,597,276 VIC CE + CP FROM ERDF-OBJ1( C4), ERDF- OBJ2( C4), ERDF-ETC( C4) AND PRIOR 2000 COMMUNITY INITIATIVES( C4) TO PRIOR 2000 ERDF-OBJ1( C4) AND ERDF-OBJ2( C4) c5 ERDF Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) -16,062, c5 ERDF - Objective 1 (prior to 2000) 25,871, c5 ERDF Objective 2 (2000 to 2006) -1,681, c5 ERDF - Urban (2000 to 2006) -1,726, c5 ERDF TA and innovative measures (2000 to 2006) -9, c5 INTERREG III Community initiative (2000 to 2006) -6,390,972 14/12/2015 SI VIC CE + CP FROM ERDF-OBJ1( C5), ERDF- OBJ2( C5), URBAN( C5), ERDF TA+INNOVAT( C5) AND ERDF-ETC( C5) TO PRIOR 2000 ERDF-OBJ1( C5) ESF More developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal -11,509, ESF Less developed regions Investment for grow th and jobs goal 11,509,486 18/12/2015 SI VIC CE FROM ESF-MDR ( ) TO ESF-LDR( )

57 ANNEX II LIST OF COM M ISSION TRANSFERS EXECUTED BY THE H2 TEAM OF DG BUDG/A2 IN 2015 P a y m e n t s Origin Description Amount Destination Description Amount Request SI2.code Reason of budget line Withdrawn of budget line Reinforced Completion of earlier programmes Objectives 1 Completion EAGGF, Guidance Section , , /08/15 SI Need CP - Fund source C4 & 6 (prior to 2000) Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) Completion of earlier programmes in Objective -104, b (prior to 2000) Completion of earlier programmes outside -152, Objective 1 (prior to 2000) Completion of Leader (2000 to 2006) -148, Transitional instrument for RD the EAGGF Guarantee Section for the new MS -467, Completion of programmes (2004 to 2006) Completion of earlier programmes Objectives 1 Completion EAGGF, Guidance Section , ,231, /08/15 SI Need CP - Fund source C5 & 6 (prior to 2000) Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) Completion of earlier programmes in Objective -1,590, b (prior to 2000) Completion of earlier programmes outside -211, Objective 1 (prior to 2000) Completion of Leader (2000 to 2006) -68, Completion of earlier Community initiatives (prior , to 2000) Transitional instrument for RD the EAGGF Guarantee Section for the new MS -18,098, Completion of programmes (2004 to 2006) Completion EAGGF, Guidance Section RD Operational TA -6,700, ,700, /11/15 SI Need for payments for closure programme Objective 1 (2000 to 2006) CFP - Compulsory contributions to international EMFF Operational TA /12/15 SI VFO-missing amount for final payment bodies Voluntary contributions to international EMFF Operational TA -146, , /12/15 SI Need for payments organisations Completion EFF Outside convergence ( EMFF Struct. Policy ,748, ,474, /12/15 SI Need for payments to 2013) Governance & communication -1,019, Scientific advice & know ledge 2,325, PP offshore fishing small-scale vessels in -33, outermost regions Completion EFF Convergence (2007 to 2013) -2,569, Outside convergence (2007 4,197, Completion EFF 17/12/15 SI Need for payments Integrated Maritime Policy -1,178, Scientific advice & know ledge 217, Control & enforcement -382, PP netw ork of marine protected areas EU 6, Mediterranean fisheries PA Guardians of the Sea -290, RD Operational TA -2,134, Rural development programmes 2,134, /12/15 SI Need for payments EMFF Operational TA -22, Scientific advice & know ledge 22, /12/15 SI Need for payments

58 ANNEX 3: N+2/N+3 DECOMMITMENTS IN 2015 FUND PROGRAMME COUNTRY TITLE OBJECTIVE (CCI code) CODE AMOUNT ERDF 2007AT162PO005 Kärnten RC&E AT 1,176,650 ERDF 2007AT162PO007 Styria RC&E AT 20,195,655 ERDF 2007BE162PO001 Bruxelles-Capitale RC&E BE 390,462 ERDF 2007BG161PO005 Environment Conv BG 9,824,536 ERDF 2007BG161PO005 Environment Conv BG 9,535,961 ERDF 2007CB163PO015 INTERACT TC CB 847,570 ERDF 2007CB163PO021 Romania Bulgaria TC CB 5,097,812 ERDF 2007CB163PO043 ETC Caraïbes TC CB 2,597,194 ERDF 2007CB163PO060 ETC Greece-Italy TC CB 25,939 ERDF 2007CZ161PO008 OP NUTS II Northwest Conv CZ 54,638,421 ERDF 2007CZ161PO012 Research and Development for Innovation Conv CZ 242,528,153 ERDF 2007CZ16UPO001 Technical assistance Conv CZ 3,467,302 ERDF 2007CZ16UPO001 Technical assistance Conv CZ 6,096,462 ERDF 2007CZ16UPO001 Technical assistance RC&E CZ 67,966 ERDF 2007CZ16UPO001 Technical assistance RC&E CZ 63,578 ERDF 2007CZ16UPO002 Integrated Operational Programme RC&E CZ 617,823 ERDF 2007CZ16UPO002 Integrated Operational Programme RC&E CZ 1,317,298 ERDF 2007CZ16UPO002 Integrated Operational Programme RC&E CZ 370,909 ERDF 2007ES162PO008 Aragón RC&E ES 5,789,877 ERDF 2007FR162PO012 Ile-de-France RC&E FR 758,387 ERDF 2007IT161PO001 Attrattori culturali, naturali e turismo Conv IT 3,163,750 ERDF 2007UK162PO002 South East England RC&E UK 448,745 ERDF Total 369,020,450 ESF 2007BE052PO003 Federal State RC&E BE 935,698 ESF 2007BE052PO004 Région de Bruxelles-Capitale RC&E BE 61,514 ESF 2007CZ052PO001 Prague Adaptability RC&E CZ 276,474 ESF 2007CZ05UPO001 Human Resources and Employment RC&E CZ 1 ESF 2007DE051PO005 ESF Sachsen-Anhalt Conv DE 23,010,808 ESF 2007ES052PO003 Comunidad Valenciana RC&E ES 4,727,422 ESF 2007ES052PO003 Comunidad Valenciana RC&E ES 11,730,237 ESF 2007ES052PO003 Comunidad Valenciana RC&E ES 2,460,191 ESF 2007ES052PO004 Aragon RC&E ES 2,283,395 ESF 2007ES052PO005 Baleares RC&E ES 1,736,642 ESF 2007ES052PO005 Baleares RC&E ES 4,883,857 ESF 2007ES052PO007 Cataluna RC&E ES 34,350,509 ESF 2007ES052PO008 Madrid RC&E ES 22,959,315 ESF 2007ES052PO011 La Rioja RC&E ES 546,231 ESF 2007ES052PO011 La Rioja RC&E ES 1,756,913 ESF 2007HU05UPO002 State Reform RC&E HU 0.04 ESF 2007IT052PO009 Bolzano RC&E IT 1,747,533 ESF 2007IT052PO009 Bolzano RC&E IT 7,659,564 ESF 2007UK05UPO001 England and Gibraltar Conv UK 8,090,585 ESF Total Grand Total 129,216, ,237,

59 ANNEX 4: HISTORICAL TREND IN COMMITMENTS AND PAYMENTS Charts 1 and 2 illustrate the evolution of the budget and its execution from 1994 to As mentioned above, the EAGGF-G and the FIFG are included in the data, while from 2007 until 2013 their successors, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the European Fisheries Fund, are not. On the other hand, the data now include the Cohesion Fund programmes of the period, as its regulatory framework and financial management have become the same as for the Structural Funds. As before, the pre-2007 projects funded by the Cohesion Fund are excluded. As regards the programming period, the data in the charts covers the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESF, ERDF, CF, EAFRD and EMFF) plus the FEAD. Comparisons between pre-2007 years and the years from 2007 onwards should therefore be treated with caution. Since the accession of ten Member States (EU-10) in 2004, followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 (EU-2) and Croatia in 2013, the commitments budget for the Structural Funds has increased considerably. Although the medium-term trend for payments also points upwards, the short term evolution is more irregular due to variations in payment execution especially during the start-up phase of new programmes (see also Chart 2 years 2000 until 2003 and ). Chart 1: Commitment and payment appropriations entered in the budget from 1994 to 2015 (EUR million, including all transfers during the year but excluding amounts carried over.) 90,000 80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 0 Commitments Rebudgetisation Payments In 2015 the outturn of commitment appropriations reflects the combined effects of the carryover from 2014 (EUR 10.4 billion) and of the re-programming (EUR 16.2 billion) while the execution of payment appropriations has remained more or less in line with the one observed in 2014 (see Chart 2 below)

60 Chart 2: Execution of commitments and payments (outturn, including of appropriations carried forward) from 1994 to 2015 (EUR million) 100,000 90,000 80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 0 Commitments Payments Chart 3 shows the evolution of the overall RAL for the Structural Funds (all periods combined) since 1994 resulting from the evolution of commitments and payments over the years. Following the reduction observed in 2014, the RAL resumed its upward trend as the level of new commitments for the programmes exceeded significantly that of the payments. Chart 3: Implementation of commitments and payments and outstanding commitments at the end of each year (EUR million) 160, , , ,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20, commitment payment RAL

61 mio EUR Table 1 shows the evolution of the outstanding commitments by programming period. Table 1: Outstanding commitments at the end of 2015* (in EUR million) RAL pre-2000 RAL RAL RAL Total RAL Outstanding commitments at the end of ,866 80,621 27, ,439 De-/Re-commitments in 2015** on RAL at the end of ,025 Payments in 2015 on outstanding commitments at the end of ,764-5,541-47,425 (1) TOTAL outstanding commitments from before ,220 38,358 22,361 61,988 New commitments made in ,093 89,439 Payments on 2015 commitments ,881-8,227 (2) TOTAL outstanding commitments from ,213 81,213 (1)+(2) TOTAL outstanding commitments at the end of ,220 38, , ,201 * only operational lines (incl. CF technical assistance for programmes) ** see Sections 3.4 and 4.2 on de-commitments Chart 4 below gives the evolution of the RAL since 1993 broken down by programming period. It shows that in 2015 the RAL for the new programmes has increased substantially whereas the level of outstanding commitments for the period was reduced by half. Chart 4: Outstanding commitments by period of origin (in EUR million) 140, , ,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 Pre-2000 period period period period

62 ANNEX 5: HISTORIC ANALYSIS OF MEMBER STATES PAYMENT FORECASTS Table 1 gives an overview of the aggregate results of the forecasting exercise since 2001 thus showing the evolution of the forecasting performance over time. Up to 2011 the forecast error was expressed as a percentage of payment execution while from 2012 onwards, following the change in methodology due to the lack of payment appropriations (see Chapter 3.5), the forecast error is expressed as a percentage of claims submitted. Thus, in 2015 the total relative forecast error for the programmes is 14%. This means that for every EUR 100 of payments claims actually submitted in 2015, the Member States had forecasted they would claim EUR 114. In absolute terms, the error was EUR 5.8 billion

63 Table 1: Overall forecasting errors from 2001 to 2015 Year Forecast Paid/Claimed** Error % Structural Funds billion billion billion programmes EU % % % % % % % % % programmes EU % % % % % % Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund programmes % % 2010* % % % % % % Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund *** % European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development % * Pre-financing not included in the paid amount. **Following a change in methodology to take into account the context of lack of payment appropriations at year-end, data from 2012 onwards show a comparison between forecast and payment claims submitted by Member States (replacing the former comparison between forecast and payments executed, used for the period ). *** This figure doesn`t include FEAD, as the related payment forecasts have been submitted starting from July

64 ANNEX 6: Economic, Social and territorial cohesion - Final allocations by Member State (current prices) Country TOTAL AT 137,153, ,964, ,049, ,581, ,395, ,285, ,252,229 1,253,682,309 BE 302,765, ,355, ,403, ,389, ,240, ,229, ,356,813 2,357,740,069 BG 648,547,579 1,410,339,055 1,132,482,052 1,163,112,564 1,205,463,447 1,248,734,402 1,290,785,217 8,099,464,316 CY 201,996, ,713,324 84,851,548 76,746,202 76,412,665 76,163,880 75,421, ,305,788 CZ 113,478,014 6,048,454,289 3,303,092,492 3,313,754,743 3,380,058,306 3,447,681,223 3,516,665,489 23,123,184,556 DE 2,490,550,747 2,612,569,659 2,667,601,360 2,800,564,392 2,856,608,769 2,913,772,969 2,972,076,264 19,313,744,160 DK 54,360,116 63,107,263 69,708,216 89,803,289 91,599,951 93,432,526 95,301, ,313,039 EE 459,542, ,038, ,534, ,677, ,747, ,727, ,086,779 3,789,354,879 EL 2,204,884,622 2,277,285,268 2,302,525,045 2,327,303,431 2,370,877,914 2,418,314,018 2,466,702,524 16,367,892,822 ES 2,206,243,121 6,298,543,725 3,923,637,422 4,060,995,704 4,136,314,549 4,219,088,947 4,303,512,537 29,148,336,005 FI 183,515, ,747, ,394, ,720, ,141, ,626, ,201,399 1,488,347,461 FR 2,193,368,875 2,314,840,984 2,207,813,734 2,344,511,313 2,390,811,271 2,438,653,593 2,487,449,346 16,377,449,116 HR 1,040,563,037 1,214,305,769 1,281,425,489 1,311,661,380 1,362,175,083 1,417,403,748 1,474,598,455 9,102,132,961 HU 2,860,994,647 3,202,811,717 3,266,117,190 3,296,560,292 3,380,989,762 3,478,918,848 3,588,399,403 23,074,791,859 IE 174,503, ,986, ,818, ,808, ,226, ,712, ,268,185 1,211,323,950 IT 2,091,719,220 7,245,794,274 4,566,321,419 4,757,409,629 4,846,496,471 4,943,481,886 5,042,399,746 33,493,622,645 LT 899,832, ,565,622 1,018,058,815 1,041,570,888 1,078,179,897 1,117,747,954 1,157,745,504 7,265,700,775 LU 5,851,433 8,430,695 8,174,897 10,001,674 10,201,787 10,405,898 10,614,083 63,680,467 LV 589,511, ,166, ,032, ,628, ,473, ,432, ,222,786 4,793,467,740 MT 99,254, ,988, ,661, ,405, ,563, ,815, ,112, ,801,517 NL 148,669, ,633, ,847, ,627, ,001, ,463, ,014,346 1,408,257,033 PL 9,912,152,288 10,569,887,724 11,460,700,504 11,758,495,728 12,289,673,011 12,826,534,485 13,360,111,389 82,177,555,129 PT 3,012,617,081 3,069,327,955 3,111,037,190 3,145,779,358 3,208,691,021 3,272,894,786 3,338,384,073 22,158,731,464 RO 974,796,605 5,061,059,965 3,436,777,060 3,560,830,435 3,721,233,856 3,881,630,431 4,034,494,163 24,670,822,515 SE 269,231, ,546, ,116, ,320, ,095, ,439, ,911,341 2,113,661,499 SI 426,364, ,936, ,595, ,120, ,447, ,959, ,662,591 3,255,086,842 SK 1,812,585,830 1,926,157,933 2,057,837,993 2,111,410,779 2,206,887,257 2,309,367,462 2,365,724,233 14,789,971,487 UK 553,314,742 2,685,236,661 1,597,027,920 1,700,340,358 1,734,366,594 1,769,072,726 1,804,470,523 11,843,829,524 Interregional 5,737,769 57,031,424 53,202,024 96,667,763 98,601, ,573, ,584, ,397,842 Urban innovative actions 50,028,377 51,028,945 52,049,523 53,090,514 54,152,324 55,235,371 56,340, ,925,133 Technical assistance EC 156,087, ,681, ,405, ,506, ,932, ,499, ,830,529 1,230,944,839 Technical assistance: MS to EC 15,500, , ,700,000 Total H1b 36,295,722,453 60,418,737,932 50,837,302,019 52,460,397,264 54,031,059,263 55,669,300,054 57,274,700, ,987,219,741

65 ANNEX 7: Sustainable growth: natural resources (except EAGF) - Final allocation by Member State (current prices) Country TOTAL AT BE BG CY CZ DE DK EE EL ES FI FR HR HU IE IT LT LU LV MT NL PL PT RO SE SI SK UK Technical assistance EC Total H2 (except EAGF)

66 ANNEX 8: List of adopted programmes and status of designation of authorities at 31 December 2015 by Member State for ESI Funds and FEAD Member State Total number of programmes adopted Number of Designated Authorities Total allocation of adopted programmes (EUR million) Total initial prefinancing paid in 2014 & 2015 (EUR million) AT 5 1 4, BE , BG , CY CZ , DE , DK 5 3 1, EE 4 3 4, ES ,964 1,225 FI 6 2 3, FR , GR ,663 1,174 HU , HR , IE 6 1 3, IT ,338 1,054 LT 4 2 8, LU LV 4 3 5, MT NL 8 5 1, PL ,469 1,753 PT , RO , SE , SI 4 1 3, SK , UK , ETC , TOTAL ,724 11,333

67 ANNEX 9: List of adopted programmes by Member State and by fund H2: EAFRD Member State Total no of OPs Total Allocation by Member State (EUR million) AT 1 3,938 BE BG 1 2,367 CY CZ 1 2,306 DE 15 9,446 DK EE ES 19 8,297 FI 2 2,380 FR 30 11,385 GR 1 4,718 HR 1 2,026 HU 1 3,431 IE 1 2,191 IT 23 10,444 LT 1 1,613 LU LV 1 1,076 MT 1 97 NL PL 1 8,698 PT 3 4,058 RO 1 8,128 SE 1 1,764 SI SK 1 1,560 UK 4 5,200 Total H2 EAFRD ,

68 H2: EMFF Member State Total no of OPs Total Allocation by Member State (EUR million) AT 1 7 BE 1 42 BG 1 88 CY 1 40 CZ 1 31 DE DK EE ES 1 1,162 FI 1 74 FR GR HR HU 1 39 IE IT LT 1 63 LU 0 0 LV MT 1 23 NL PL PT RO SE SI 1 25 SK 1 16 UK Total H2 EMFF 27 5,

69 H1b: FEAD Member State Total no of OPs Total Allocation by Member State (EUR million) AT 1 18 BE 1 74 BG CY 1 4 CZ 1 23 DE 1 79 DK 1 4 EE 1 8 ES FI 1 23 FR GR HR 1 37 HU 1 94 IE 1 23 IT LT 1 77 LU 1 4 LV 1 41 MT 1 4 NL 1 4 PL PT RO SE 1 8 SI 1 21 SK 1 55 UK 1 4 Total H1b FEAD 28 3,

70 H1b: ERDF, CF, ESF, YEI and TC Member State Total no of OPs Total Allocation by Member State (EUR million) AT BE 7 2,021 BG 8 7,423 CY CZ 8 21,643 DE 32 18,269 DK EE 1 3,535 ES 45 27,942 FI 2 1,304 FR 40 14,763 GR 18 15,275 HR 2 8,463 HU 7 21,544 IE 3 1,020 IT 51 31,687 LT 1 6,709 LU 2 40 LV 1 4,418 MT NL 5 1,015 PL 22 76,866 PT 12 21,343 RO 6 22,541 SE 11 1,764 SI 1 3,012 SK 7 13,768 UK 12 10,974 Territorial cooperation (TC) 76 9,234 Total H1b (except FEAD) ,375 Total H1b (all Funds) ,

71 ANNEX 10: REFERENCES More information about the Structural and Cohesion Funds in general as well as their recent implementation may be found on the EUROPA site at the following addresses: GENERAL INFORMATION ERDF and CF: Regional Policy DG Inforegio: ESF and YEI: Employment and Social Affairs DG ESF: EAFRD: Agriculture and Rural Development DG: FIFG and EMFF : Maritime Affairs and Fisheries DG: LEGAL BASES Overview of Regulations for : Overview of Regulations for : Overview of Regulations for : Overview of Regulations for : ANNUAL REPORTS The annual Reports on the Structural Funds and on the Cohesion Fund edited by the operational DGs (up to 2011) are published at the following address:

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