(1)

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1195 (2) establishes measures to eradicate and prevent the spread of Synchytrium endobioticum (Schilbersky) Percival (‘the specified pest’) in the Union territory. It succeeded Council Directive 69/464/EEC (3), which from 1 January 2022 was repealed by Regulation (EU) 2016/2031.

(2)

In accordance with Article 4(1) of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1195, the competent authorities are to designate a production site as infested by the specified pest where the presence of the specified pest in that site has been officially confirmed by the tests referred to in Article 3(2) of that Implementing Regulation.

(3)

There have been doubts whether areas that have been demarcated by the competent authorities as contaminated plots pursuant to Article 2(1) of Directive 69/464/EEC before 1 January 2022 should also be deemed to be designated as infested production sites pursuant to Article 4(1) of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1195. In order to ensure the highest possible protection of the Union territory from the specified pest, such plots should be subject to the same requirements as the infested production sites designated pursuant to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1195. For this reason, Article 4(1) of that Implementing Regulation should make clear that the plots demarcated as contaminated pursuant to Article 2(1) of Directive 69/464/EEC before 1 January 2022 should also be deemed to be designated as infested production sites.

(4)

In accordance with Article 3(3) of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1195, Member States are to report to the Commission and the other Member States, by 30 April of each year, the results of the surveys referred to in paragraph 1 of that Article, which were carried out in the preceding year. They are to report those results in accordance with the template set out in Annex II to that Implementing Regulation.

(5)

It has proven more practical to refer in the template to the size of the infested area in the year covered by the report as well as in the year before, instead of the demarcated area, as the infested area is the one that requires the most detailed reporting of results. Furthermore, reporting data on samples for visual inspection of tubers, and reporting of details on the methodology of testing in laboratory tests do not provide noteworthy information for the purposes of the survey. Therefore, the respective columns should be removed from the survey template.

(6)

Moreover, it is necessary to clarify in the first sentence in Annex II that the template is to present results of surveys carried out during the calendar year preceding the year of reporting.

(7)

Annex IV to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1195 sets out conditions for revocation of the measures as referred to in Article 9 of that Implementing Regulation.

(8)

Moreover, and in order to ensure the highest possible level of certainty about the elimination of the respective phytosanitary risk, it is necessary to add, in point 1.1. of Annex IV to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1195, that, where the infested zone has been used as permanent grassland, the measures may only be revoked where no signs of infection with the specified pest have been discovered in soil samples which were taken by applying the scheme to be used to obtain the soil for the testing as set out in point 1.2 of Annex IV to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1195.

(9)

Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1195 should therefore be amended accordingly.

(10)

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed,

(1)

in Article 4(1), the following subparagraph is added:

‘Plots demarcated by the competent authorities as contaminated, in accordance with Article 2(1) of Directive 69/464/EEC, before 1 January 2022, shall be deemed to be designated as infested production sites.’;

(2)

Annex II is amended as set out in the Annex to this Regulation;

(3)

In Annex IV, point 1.1. is replaced by the following: