EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM
1.CONTEXT OF THE DELEGATED ACT
The 2013 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (the "CAP") has confirmed that the system of public intervention and aid for private storage should continue as two of the main market measures of the CAP as laid down in the Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural products ("the CMO Regulation").
A number of analysis methods laid down in Commission Regulation 273/2008 have not been updated since 2008 and need to be reviewed, particularly in terms of accuracy of the methods but also as regards acceptable administrative burden and costs for Member States and for operators. Therefore, the Regulation on analysis methods for public intervention and private storage needs to be repealed and replaced by simplified rules that are aligned with the Treaty of Lisbon and with the according empowerments contained in the relevant basic acts. Moreover, under the new architecture of secondary legislation, the current separate Regulations covering analysis methods for products in the framework of public intervention and aid for private storage shall be integrated into the delegated and implemented horizontal acts related to the abovementionned measures.
In view of harmonisation, a comprehensive screening of the methods was laid down to ensure the quality of the dairy products bought into public intervention or eligible for private storage aid was carried out as well as the simplification of relevant provisions of the Commission Regulations.
Due to the several technical improvements in the analytical methodology, compositional requirements and quality characteristics of certain milk products with regard to public intervention and aid for private storage should be reviewed. At the same time, better account was taken of existing Union rules related to hygiene requirements for dairy products. Quality parameters for buying-in under public intervention and for the private storage of milk products therefore need to be updated. This is being done with the present Delegated Regulation and a parallel Implementing Regulation. In order to ensure consistency, legislative coherence, certainty and thereby not creating a lacuna, the Delegated Regulation should be approved and applied from the same date as the Implementing Regulation.
2.CONSULTATIONS PRIOR TO THE ADOPTION OF THE ACT
The Commission discussed the draft Delegated Act with experts nominated by the Member States in meetings of the CMO Expert Group during the period […] 2017 and took account of the views and positions expressed during these consultations.
The draft Delegated Regulation was made available for public consultation within the framework of the Better Regulation Portal for a period of four weeks […]. In total […] stakeholders organisations had commented. The Commission took into consideration the comments that helped in the harmonization of the rules and in the adaptation of requirements to current technical circumstances.
Experts of the European Parliament were informed about all those discussions and invited to all the meetings.
3.LEGAL ELEMENTS OF THE DELEGATED ACT
The delegated act amends Delegated Regulation (EU) No 2016/1238 as regards the conditions of eligibility of products for the schemes taking account of the different nature of the products and in particular the analysis requirements for milk and milk products.
In order to ensure harmonised checks it is necessary to have limits set with regards to the parameters required. Therefore the horizontal delegated Regulation on public intervention needs to be updated to be in line with the new implementing rules.
COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) …/...
of XXX
amending Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 2016/1238 with regard to the compositional requirements and quality characteristics of milk and milk products eligible for public intervention and aid for private storage
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,
Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,
Having regard to Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural products and repealing Council Regulations (EEC) No 922/72, (EEC) No 234/79, (EC) No 1037/2001 and (EC) No 1234/2007 1 , and in particular Article 19(1)(a) thereof,