Commission Decision of 5 March 2008 laying down rules for the implementation of Decision No 575/2007/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the European Return Fund for the period 2008 to 2013 as part of the General programme ‘Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows’ as regards Member States' management and control systems, the rules for administrative and financial management and the eligibility of expenditure on projects co-financed by the Fund (notified under document number C(2008)796) (Only the Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish texts are authentic) (2008/458/EC)

Article 39 Eligibility rules

1. The rules set out in Annex XI shall be used to determine the eligibility of expenditure on action financed under the annual programmes referred to in Article 35(4) of the basic act.

2. The rules are applicable to expenditure incurred by the final beneficiaries and shall apply mutatis mutandis to expenditure incurred by the partners in the project.

3. Member States may apply national eligibility rules that are more rigorous than those laid down in this Decision.

It shall be for the Commission to evaluate whether the applicable national eligibility rules comply with this condition.