"The decommitted appropriations may be made available again in the event of a manifest error attributable solely to the Commission."

Decommitted appropriations shall be made available again at the latest by 15 February of the financial year following that in which the decommitments were effected.

In addition, your draftsman believes that the decommitted funds should not be lost but should be reused for new projects.

As regards the principle of universality, the practices of repayment of payments on account and reuse should be discontinued; in some cases they should be replaced by assigned revenue and ways of reconstituting decommitted appropriations.

As regards the making available again of decommitted appropriations, in line with the new basic acts for structural actions in the period 2007 to 2013 which cover the case of force majeure, provision should be maintained in the Financial Regulation only for cases where a manifest error is attributable to the Commission.

More detailed provisions relate to the date of application of the rule, transfers between Funds or programmes, incidences of decommitted amounts being reused (error due solely to the Commission, cases of force majeure due to a serious natural disaster) and any legal procedures or administrative appeals leading to delays in payment.

Request for the reconstitution of decommitted appropriations on the basis of Article 157 of the Financial Regulation as a result of a manifest error attributable to the Commission (erroneous decommitment of the total amount of the balance of a programme; subsequent realisation that an amount still had to be paid).