Article 12 Budgetary principles

Budgets, drawn up in euro, are the acts which for each financial year lay down and authorise all the revenue and expenditure administered by the Agency.

The appropriations entered in a budget are authorised for the duration of a financial year which begins on 1 January and ends on 31 December of the same year.

For each budget, revenue and expenditure must be balanced. All revenue and expenditure shall be entered in full in the relevant budget without any adjustment against each other.

The budget shall contain differentiated appropriations, which shall consist of commitment appropriations and payment appropriations and non-differentiated appropriations.

Commitment appropriations shall cover the total cost of the legal commitments entered into during the current financial year. However, commitments may be made globally or in annual instalments. Commitments shall be entered into the accounts on the basis of the legal commitments entered into up to 31 December.

Payment appropriations shall cover payments made to honour the legal commitments entered into the current financial year and/or earlier financial years. Payments shall be entered in the accounts on the basis of the budget commitments up to 31 December.

The revenue of a financial year shall be entered in the accounts for the financial year on the basis of the amounts collected during that financial year.

Neither revenue nor expenditure may be implemented other than by allocation to a heading in the budget and within the limit of the appropriations entered therein.

Appropriations shall be used in accordance with the principles of sound financial management, namely in accordance with the principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.