Guidelines on the Use of the COST Fund as Approved by the COST Committee of Senior Officials (CSO) (link)

Brussels, 17 Jun 2004

Full text of Document 282/04
Suite of documents 282/04

1. The COST Fund is used to financially support any activities decided by the CSO to further the aims of COST as well as to pay for travel expenses by persons travelling for COST at the request of the CSO or its President.

2. The Fund is administered by the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, to whom the CSO has delegated the task of making routine payments and collecting contributions from COST Member States.

3. For each year the CSO approves an indicative budget for the COST Fund. Expenditure within this budget can be approved by the President of the CSO up to a limit of 20.000 Euro per single item. The CSO will be subsequently notified of such expenditure in the frame of the annual report by the Secretariat.

4. Any expenditure not included in the annual budget as approved by the CSO or exceeding the limit above must be separately approved by the CSO in advance.

5. Any expenditure must be supported by appropriate documentation for accounting purposes.

6. Travel expenses will be reimbursed according to established practice described below:

- If not covered by their home organisations functional travel expenses (e.g. of the Presidency or invited experts) can be reimbursed from the COST Fund according to the rules of the home organisation.

However, no overtime or other salary-related expenses can be paid by the COST Fund.

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