# Council Decision 2004/658/CFSP of 13 September 2004 on the financial provisions applicable to the general budget of the European Defence Agency, Article 24

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

1. In respect of any measure which may give rise to expenditure chargeable to the budget, the authorising officer responsible must first make a budgetary commitment before entering into a legal obligation with third parties.
2. Global budget commitments shall cover the total cost of the corresponding individual legal commitments concluded up to 31 December of year n + 1.
Subject to Article 23(3), individual legal commitments relating to individual or provisional budgetary commitments shall be concluded by 31 December of year n.
At the end of the periods referred to in the first and second subparagraphs, the unused balance of these budgetary commitments shall be decommitted by the authorising officer responsible.
The amount of each individual legal commitment adopted following a global commitment shall, prior to signature, be registered by the authorising officer responsible in the budgetary accounts and booked to the global commitment.
3. The legal commitments entered into for actions extending over more than one financial year and the corresponding budgetary commitments shall, save in the case of staff expenditure, have a final date for implementation set in compliance with the principle of sound financial management.
Any parts of such commitments which have not been executed six months after that date shall be decommitted and the appropriations concerned shall be cancelled.
Where a legal commitment has not then resulted in a payment after a period of three years, the authorising officer responsible shall decommit it.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2004/658/annex/article/24 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2004-658/annex/article-24
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.