{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2016-1353/article-31",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2016-1353/article-31.json",
  "legislation": "eudn/2016/1353",
  "legislation_title": "Council Decision (EU) 2016/1353 of 4 August 2016 concerning the financial rules of the European Defence Agency and repealing Decision 2007/643/CFSP",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2016-1353",
  "path": "article/31",
  "kind": "article",
  "number": "31",
  "heading": "Implementation of expenditure",
  "text": "1. To implement expenditure, the Authorising Officer shall make budgetary commitments and legal commitments, validate expenditure and authorise payments and undertake the preliminary steps for the implementation of appropriations.\n2. A budgetary commitment is the operation by which the appropriation necessary to cover subsequent payments to honour legal commitments is reserved. A legal commitment is the act whereby the Authorising Officer enters into or establishes an obligation which results in a charge. Budgetary commitments and legal commitments shall be adopted by the same Authorising Officer, except in duly justified cases.\nBudgetary commitments shall fall into one of the following categories:\n(a) individual: the budgetary commitment is individual when the beneficiary and the amount of the expenditure are known;\n(b) global: the budgetary commitment is global when at least one of the elements necessary to identify the individual commitment is still not known;\n(c) provisional: the budgetary commitment is provisional when it is intended to cover routine administrative expenditure and either the amount or the final payees are not definitively known.\nBudgetary commitments for actions extending over more than one financial year may be broken down over several years into annual instalments only where the basic act so provides or where they relate to administrative expenditure.\n3. Every item of expenditure shall be committed, validated, authorised and paid.\nThe validation of expenditure is the act whereby the Authorising Officer:\n(a) verifies the existence of the creditor's entitlement;\n(b) determines or verifies the reality and the amount of the claim;\n(c) verifies the conditions according to which the payment is due.\nAuthorisation of expenditure is the act by which the Authorising Officer, having verified that the appropriations are available, instructs the accounting officer to pay the validated expenditure.\n4. In respect of any measure which may give rise to expenditure chargeable to the Agency's budget, the Authorising Officer shall make a budgetary commitment before entering into a legal commitment with third parties.\n5. Year one of the Agency's three-year Planning Framework shall provide for the authorisation by the Steering Board for the operational expenditure of the Agency on the activities it covers, provided that the elements set out in this paragraph are clearly identified.\nThe Planning Framework shall comprise detailed objectives and expected results. It shall also contain a description of the action(s) to be financed and an indication of the amount allocated to each action.\nAny substantial amendment to year one of the Agency's three-year Planning Framework shall be adopted by the same procedure as the initial Planning Framework.\nThe Steering Board may delegate the power to make non-substantial amendments to the Planning Framework to the Authorising Officer of the Agency.",
  "extent": "E+W+S+N.I.",
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2016/1353/article/31",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-11-01T15:13:51.512600+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}