Introductory text

THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community,

Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 of 21 June 1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds^f1, and in particular Article 44 thereof,

Whereas:

Article 7(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999 requires that 4 % of commitment appropriations under each national indicative breakdown are to be allocated as the performance reserve in accordance with Article 44 of that Regulation. On 1 July 1999 the Commission fixed the indicative allocations by Member States for the commitment appropriations for Objectives 1 and 2 by Commission Decisions 1999/501/EC^f2 and 1999/504/EC^f3 respectively, for Objective 3 by Commission Decision 1999/505/EC^f4 and for the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance outside Objective 1 by Commission Decision 1999/500/EC^f5.

Before 31 December 2003, on the basis of the monitoring indicators referred to in Article 44(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999, the Member States assessed under each objective, in close consultation with the Commission, the performance of each of their assistance documents. Based on these assessments, they have sent their proposals for the allocation of the performance reserve to the Commission.

The performance reserve should therefore be allocated to the operational programmes or single programming document or the priorities of the latter which are considered to be successful.

This decision will be complemented by a Commission Decision on each operational programme or single programming document in accordance with Articles 14 and 15 of Regulation (EC) No 1260/1999, and respecting the Berlin profile of annual allocation of funds,

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION: