Documents to be submitted for the payment of the balance

Within 60 calendar days following the end of the last reporting period,the Member States must submit to Eurostat:
-The “Request for payment of the balance”
-The “Final report on implementation of the action”
-Only in case methodological changes trigger a decrease of total costs of a data collection (CORE, LAFO, RDEV, MIR, MSMP, MMEQ, MORC) by more than 20% compared to the grant application, then the Member State must sent the revised Excel file "Technical breakdown of estimated real costs". In this file, the Member State has to update only and any of the following input parameters for the data collection in question:

• Fixed costs (cell I13)
• Share of variables collected from administrative sources (cell H20)
• Average share of holdings for which variables are taken from administrative sources (cell H21)
• Shares of data collection modes (cells from B29 to F29).

Following that update, the Excel file automatically updates the total costs for the data collection in question as well as the total costs and the total eligible costs for all data collections.

Quantity and quality controls and payment of the balance

Eurostat applies quantity and quality controls to prevent overspending of the EU budget, as follows:

Quantity controls

Eurostat recalculates the total costs, the total eligible costs and the EU contribution in the following 3 cases:

Case 1

The total costs of a data collection decrease by more than 20% compared to the grant application. Please note that only in this case the country should send the revised Excel file "Technical breakdown of estimated real costs" to Eurostat. The revised file includes the updated total costs for the data collection in question.

Case 2

The final number of records of a data collection decrease by more than 10% compared to the grant application, or if case 1 above is applicable, compared to the revised file.

Eurostat calculates the final number of records from the dataset as follows:

CORE: COUNT where (HLD_FEF=0 and EXTPOL_FACT1_CORE is not missing)

CORE_FEF: COUNT where (HLD_FEF=1* and EXTPOL_FACT1_CORE is not missing)

LAFO : COUNT where (HLD_FEF=0 and EXTPOL_FACT1_LAFO is not missing)

RDEV : COUNT where (HLD_FEF=0 and EXTPOL_FACT1_RDEV is not missing)

MSMP

MMEQ

MORC

In case 2, countries should not send the revised Excel file "Technical breakdown of estimated real costs" to Eurostat.

Case 3

The sampling rate for CORE_FEF exceeds 10%

If for CORE_FEF, the number of records exceeds 10% of the number of holdings in the population frame (from the grant application or - if case 1 above is applicable - from the revised file), then Eurostat considers the final number of records in the CORE_FEF as being 10%, except for proper justifications.. In case 3, countries should not send the revised Excel file "Technical breakdown of estimated real costs" to Eurostat.

Cost recalculation

Eurostat recalculates the total costs for the data collection in question using the final number of records and the already available fixed costs and variable costs per record (from the grant application or, if case 1 above is applicable, from the revised file). Further on, Eurostat recalculates the total costs over all data collections and - using the available Share of non-eligible costs - the total eligible costs over all data collections. Please note that the recalculated total eligible costs might not affect the EU contribution: (Revised) EU contribution following quantity controls= MIN (75% ×(Revised) Total eligible costs for all data collections, The maximum amount set in Regulation EU2018/1091 )

Quality controls

Eurostat calculates the share of the eligible cases not compliant to precision requirements, over all data collections, using the dataset (to identify the cases eligible to precision requirements) and the relative standard errors received from the country. Please see chapter Precision Requirements. In case that share is higher than 10%, Eurostat reduces the (Revised) EU contribution following quantity controls, as indicated in the table below, except for proper justifications.

Table 25 – Share of eligible cases not compliant to precision requirements according to Annex II of Regulation (EU) 2018/1091

Calculation of the final payment

Eurostat calculates the final payment (the payment of the balance) as follows:

Final payment= (Revised)EU contribution following quality controls- the pre-financing amount