Guidelines on the closure of operational programmes adopted for assistance from the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (2014-2020)

Taking into account the importance of timely and efficient closure of the operational programmes approved for assistance from the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund for the programming period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020, including those benefiting from the REACT-EU resources, it is necessary to provide proper guidance on the closing of those operational programmes in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (1) and the legal acts of general application adopted on its basis.

In view of the experience of closing the 2000-2006 and 2007-2013 programming periods, the guidelines propose simplified procedures aiming to build on the best practices identified during the closure of these previous periods.

The guidelines take into account the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis in 2020 and 2021 as well as its impact on programme implementation.

The purpose of the guidelines is to facilitate the closure process by providing the methodological framework under which the closure exercise should take place for the financial settlement of the Union’s outstanding budgetary commitments through payment of any final balance to the Member State in respect of a programme and/or decommitment or recovery of the sums unduly paid by the Commission to the Member State.

With the system of annual examination and acceptance of accounts, a significant simplification of the closure procedure has been introduced. The final closure of the programme should therefore be based only on the documents relating to the final accounting year and the final implementation report or the last annual implementation report.