budgetary implementation

1.4 EVOLUTION OF THE END-OF-YEAR CONCENTRATION
As most of the commitments under the Structural Funds (and now also the 2007-2013
Cohesion Fund) are typically made at the beginning of the year in accordance with the legal
base (except for the first year of the programming period), Chart 3 focuses only on the end-ofyear
concentration for payments in December.
In 2012, the year-end concentration of payments declined further compared to previous years
reaching a level similar to the record low level of 2008. However, this low year-end
concentration was due, even more than in 2011, to insufficient payment appropriations
towards the end of the year. If no additional payment appropriations had been provided by the
Amending Budget No 6 and the End of Year Transfer, the percentage of payments executed
in December would even have been close to zero.
Chart 3: Concentration of payment appropriations in December (percentage executed in December) since
2000
The profile of payment claim submission has significantly changed in 2012 compared to the
previous year (see Chart 4 below). Unlike 2011, when 42% of the total payment claims for the
2007-13 programmes arrived during the last two months of the year, in 2012 the
corresponding figure decreased to 29%. This anticipation of claim submission follows a
corresponding Commission request to the MS in April 2012 calling for submission of most
claims before 31 October. The request seems to have led to a strong increase of claims
submitted within the month of October (accounting for 21% of total 2012 claims submission).
Out of the EUR 14.6 billion worth of payment claims submitted during the last two months of
the year, the overwhelming majority (EUR 13.3 billion) then only arrived in December, with
a substantial peak in the last 10 days of the year. As in previous years, this was triggered, to
some extent, by the n+2/n+3 de-commitment constraints.
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