Basque Country Operational Programme 2007-2013 ERDF

This annex is not a document of the litigation: it is the programming rule under which the litigation's file was processed. Its function here is to fix who owed what.

The instrument

• Basque Country ERDF Operational Programme 2007-2013, official text with edition of 26 November 2010.
• Framework: the European Regional Development Fund, under Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 — management and control systems, audit trail, Article 60 verifications.
• Within that framework operated the GAUZATU-Industria line through which the case's aid was processed (A.1, A.5).

The obligations it sets

• Verification of the reality of the co-financed operations before certifying expenditure (Article 60.b of the Regulation).
• Legitimacy of the beneficiaries and of their representation — the point that the SPRI's requirement documents as breached (A.4).
• Complete documentary traceability of each file: the audit trail that allows, today, the comparison this portal proposes.

The legal effect on the case

Co-financing turns each documented irregularity — application without powers (A.4), company without registration (A.1, A.3), payments with verification questioned by the very declaration of non-compliance (A.5, A.6) — into a matter of protection of the Union's financial interests: competence of the Commission, OLAF and, where appropriate, the European Public Prosecutor's Office. The case ceases to be internal by the nature of the money.

How to verify it

Locate in the programme's text the priority axis and the control systems applicable to aid for technological SMEs; then compare each obligation with the case's GAUZATU file. The distance between the programme and the file is measured obligation by obligation.