In accordance with Art. 67 of the general regulation, the Managing Authority will submit an Annual Implementation Report to the Commission within six months of the end of each full calendar year of implementation. The report must be examined and approved by the Monitoring Committee before it is sent to the Commission.
Once the Commission has received the report, it shall inform the Member State of its opinion on the admissibility of the annual report. The annual report shall include the following information:
a) the progress made in implementing the Operational Programme and priorities in relation to their specific, verifiable targets, with a quantification, wherever and whenever they lend themselves to quantification, using the indicators referred to in Article 37 (1)(c) at the level of the priority axis, and in relation to the context indicators attached at Annex 2;
b) the financial implementation of the Operational Programme, detailing for each priority axis:
(i) the expenditure paid out by the beneficiaries included in payment claims sent to the managing authority and the corresponding public contribution;
(ii) the total payments received from the Commission, and quantification of the financial indicators referred to in Article 66(2); and
(iii) the expenditure paid out by the body responsible for making payments to the beneficiaries;
c) for information purposes only, the indicative breakdown of the allocation of Funds by categories, in accordance with the implementation rules adopted by the Commission according to the procedure referred to in article 103(3);
d) the steps taken by the Managing Authority or the Monitoring Committee to ensure the quality and effectiveness of implementation, in particular:
i) monitoring and evaluation measures, including data collection arrangements;
ii) a summary of any significant problems encountered in implementing the Operational Programme and any interventions undertaken, including the response to comments made under Article 68(2) where appropriate;
iii) the use made of technical assistance;
e) the measures taken to provide information on and publicise the Operational Programme;
f) information about significant problems relating to the compliance with community law which have been encountered in the implementation of the Operational Programme and the measures taken to deal with them;
g) where appropriate, the progress and financing of major projects;
h) the use made of assistance released following cancellation as referred in Article 98(2) to the Managing Authority or to another public authority during the period of implementation of the Operational Programme.
i) cases where it has been detected that there is a substantial modification under Article 57.
The Managing Authority will ensure that the Annual Implementation Report is presented in a concise and readable format. In order to monitor the contribution of the OP to the principle of territorial cohesion, progress reports will where feasible provide data at NUTS III level.
Annual Implementation Review
In accordance with Art. 68 of the General Regulation, every year, when the annual report on implementation referred to in Article 67 is submitted, the Commission and the Managing Authority shall examine the progress made in implementing the Operational Programme, the principal results achieved over the previous year, the financial implementation and other factors with a view to improving implementation. Any aspects of the operation of the management and control system raised in the last annual control report, referred to in Article 62(1)(d)(i), may also be examined. After this examination the Commission may make comments to the Member State and the Managing Authority, which will inform the Monitoring Committee thereof. The Member State will inform the Commission of the action taken in response to those comments.
