1.Without prejudice to decisions referred to in Article 14, for each financial year an annual declaration presented in accordance with a form established by the Commission together with a certificate and an audit report as required by Article 6(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1258/1999, Article 4 and Article 5(1)(a), (c) and (e), and Article 5(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1663/95 shall be drawn up by the applicant country and transmitted to the Commission by the national authorising officer.
2.The Commission shall receive the documents referred to in paragraph 1 by 30 April of the year following the financial year concerned.
The provisions fixed in the first and second last sentence of Article 7(1), Article 7(2)(c), and Article 7(3) and (4) of Regulation (EC) No 296/96 are applicable. For the financial year ‘n’, all transactions recorded in the accounts of the Sapard agency in the financial year ‘n’ are taken into consideration.
3.The Commission shall, before the 30 September of the year following the financial year concerned, clear the account of the Sapard agency in accordance with the provisions of Article 7(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1258/1999 and Article 7 of Regulation (EC) No 1663/95 hereinafter referred to as ‘the clearance of accounts decision’. The clearance of accounts decision shall also cover the clearance of the Sapard euro account. It shall also clear the amounts to be credited to the Sapard euro account in accordance with Article 9(4) and Article 11(3).
4.The Commission shall communicate to the applicant country concerned the results of its verifications of the information supplied, before 31 July following the end of the financial year. If, for reasons attributable to the applicant country concerned, the Commission is unable to clear the accounts of an applicant country before 30 September, the Commission shall notify the applicant country of further enquiries it proposes to undertake.
5.The amount fixed by the clearance of accounts decision shall normally be added to or deducted from one of the subsequent payments from the Commission to the applicant country. However in cases where the amount to de deducted, fixed by this decision, exceeds the level of possible subsequent payments, the amount not covered by the balance shall be credited to the Commission in euro within two months of notification of the decision. The Commission may however, on a case by case basis, decide that any amount to be credited to it shall be offset against payments due to be made by the Commission to the applicant country under any Community instrument.