In accordance with Article 75 of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (8) and Article 90(1) of Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2342/2002 of 23 December 2002 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (9), the commitment of expenditure from the Union budget shall be preceded by a financing decision adopted by the institution to which powers have been delegated, setting out the ...[+++]essential elements of the action involving the expenditure.

In accordance with Article 75 of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (6) and Article 90(1) of Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2342/2002 of 23 December 2002 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (7), the commitment of expenditure from the Union budget shall be preceded by a financing decision adopted by the institution to which powers have been delegated, setting out the ...[+++]essential elements of the action involving the expenditure.

Secondly, it is also unacceptable that expenditure under the enlargement heading, considered a priority, should also be lower in nominal terms relative to 2007, and, thirdly, it is unacceptable that expenditure on external affairs should increase to a lesser extent – by about 1.5% – than general expenditure, which is set to increase by 2%.

‘public expenditure’: any public contribution to the financing of operations whose origin is the budget of the State, of regional and local authorities, of the European Communities related to the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund and any similar expenditure.

It is appropriate to define what expenditure in a Member State can be assimilated to public expenditure for the purpose of calculating the total national public contribution to an operational programme; to this end it is appropriate to refer to the contribution of the ‘bodies governed by public law’ as defined in the Community public procurement directives since such bodies comprise several types of public or private body established for the specific purpose of meeting needs in the general interest not having an industrial or commercial character and which are controlled by the State, or regional and local authorities.

As a general rule, the level of expenditure referred to in the first and second subparagraphs shall be at least equal to the amount of average annual expenditure in real terms achieved in the previous programming period and shall be determined in the light of the general macroeconomic circumstances in which the funding takes place, although account should be taken of certain specific economic situations, namely privatisations, an exceptional level of public structural effort or equivalent effort on the part of the Member State during the previous programming period and national economic trends.