(1)

The Agreement in the form of an Exchange of Letters between the European Community and the United States of America pursuant to Article XXIV:6 and Article XXVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 (2), approved by Council Decision 2006/333/EC (3), provides for the incorporation of a country allocated (US) import tariff rate quota of 4 722 tonnes of pigmeat.

(2)

In order to ensure regular imports, the quantities of products covered by the import regime should be staggered over the period from 1 July to 30 June.

(3)

The administration of the tariff quota should be based on import licences. To that end, detailed rules for the submission of applications and the information which must appear in applications and licences should be laid down. Commission Regulation (EC) No 1291/2000 of 9 June 2000 laying down common detailed rules for the application of the system of import and export licences and advance fixing certificates for agricultural products (4) should apply, save as otherwise provided in this Regulation.

(4)

In view of the possible accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union as from 1 January 2007, it is advisable to provide for a different period for lodging the licence applications for the first quarter of the year 2007.

(5)

In order to ensure proper administration of the tariff quota, the security for import licences under the system should be set at EUR 20 per 100 kilograms. In view of the likelihood of speculation inherent in the system in the pigmeat sector, clear conditions should be laid down as regards access by operators.

(6)

Provision should be made for the licences to be issued after a period for consideration and, where necessary, an allocation coefficient should be applied to determine the quantity awarded in respect of each application.

(7)

In the interests of the operators, provision should be made for the withdrawal of applications after the fixing of the coefficient to be applied.

(8)

The attention of operators should be drawn to the fact that licences may only be used for products which comply with all the veterinary requirements in force in the Community.

(9)

To ensure proper management of the import regimes, the Commission needs precise information from the Member States on the quantities actually imported. For the sake of clarity it is necessary to use a single model for communicating the quantities between Member States and the Commission.

(10)

By way of derogation from Regulation (EC) No 1291/2000 and in order to assure that the imported quantity does not exceed the quantity under this regime, the tolerance provided for in Article 8(4) of that Regulation should not apply.

(11)

For the period from 1 July 2006 to 30 September 2006 the operators have to introduce the licence applications during the first 15 days following the date of entry into force of this Regulation. It is therefore advisable to provide for the entering into force of this Regulation on the date of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

(12)

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Management Committee for Pigmeat,

—

25 % in the period from 1 July to 30 September;

—

25 % in the period from 1 October to 31 December;

—

25 % in the period from 1 January to 31 March;

—

25 % in the period from 1 April to 30 June.

(a)

applicants for import licences must be natural or legal persons who, at the time applications are submitted, can prove to the satisfaction of the competent authorities in the Member States that they have been engaged in trade with third countries in pigmeat products for at least the preceding 12 months;

(b)

licence applications may refer to only the order number set out in Annex I and may involve several products covered by different CN codes and originating in the United States of America; in such cases, all the CN codes shall be indicated in section 16 and their descriptions in section 15;

(c)

for the order number, licence applications must relate to at least 20 tonnes and to a maximum of 20 % of the quantity available for the period as specified in Article 2;

(d)

section 8 of licence applications and licences shall indicate the country of origin and the box indicating ‘yes’ shall be ticked to indicate that this indication is compulsory;

(e)

section 20 of licence applications and licences shall show one of the entries listed in Annex II;

(f)

section 24 of licences shall show one of the entries listed in Annex III.