Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the Court of Auditors. Final accounts of the 8th, 9th and 10th European Development Funds – financial year 2012

The European Development Fund (EDF) is the main instrument for providing Union aid for development cooperation to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States and Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs). The 1957 Treaty of Rome made provision for its creation with a view to granting technical and financial assistance, initially limited to African countries which at that time were still colonised and with which some Member States had historical links.

The EDF is not funded by the European Union's budget. It is funded by the Member States, subject to its own financial regulation and managed by a specific committee. The European Commission is responsible for the financial implementation of the operations carried out with EDF resources and the European Investment Bank (EIB) manages the Investment Facility.

During the period 2008-2013, the geographic aid granted to ACP States and OCTs will continue to be mainly funded by the EDF. Each EDF is usually concluded for a period of around five years. Since the conclusion of the first partnership convention in 1964, the EDF programming cycles have generally followed the partnership agreement / convention cycles. Each EDF is governed by its own Financial Regulation which imposes the preparation of financial statements for each individual EDF.

Accordingly, financial statements are prepared separately for each EDF in respect of the part that is managed by the European Commission. These financial statements are also presented in an aggregated way so as to provide a global view of the financial situation of the resources for which the European Commission is responsible.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)541: Follow the progress of this communication through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:541:FIN

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