(1)

Article 20 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 174/1999 (2) provides that export licences for cheese exported to the United States of America as part of the quotas under the agreements concluded during multilateral trade negotiations may be allocated according to a special procedure by which preferred importers in the USA may be designated.

(2)

Following the accession of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia (new Member States) to the Community on 1 May 2004, the tariff quotas for certain cheeses originally resulting from the Uruguay Round and granted to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia by the United States of America in Uruguay Round list XX are to be amalgamated into an EU-25 quota and administered as from 2005 onwards in the same way as the EU-15 quota has been under the abovementioned agreements.

(3)

In order to allow operators in the new Member States to adapt to the system applied in the Community, transitional measures should be introduced for the 2005 quota year in respect of the application of the allocation criteria in Article 20(3) of Regulation (EC) No 174/1999 to requests for export licenses lodged in the new Member States.

(4)

A transitional arrangement as regards the application of the historic export criterion should relate to all applications by applicants established in and applying in the new Member States for quotas for which no country-specific quota has been fixed for 2003.

(5)

Another transitional arrangement as regards the application of the preference for subsidiaries criterion should apply to applications by applicants established in and applying in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia for provisional licences to export cheese intended to enter the USA under quotas for which a country-specific quota has been fixed for 2003.

(6)

In order to give some flexibility to EU exporters to export products under quotas described in the Harmonised Tariff Schedule of the United States of America, the application for an export licence should contain the eight-digit product code of the Combined Nomenclature.

(7)

As no export refund is applied for the products falling under CN code 0406 destined to the United States of America the proof of arrival should not be required in order to have the licence security released.

(8)

Regulation (EC) No 174/1999 should therefore be amended accordingly.

(9)

Given the time limit for the implementation of the procedure for 2005, this Regulation should apply as soon as possible.

(10)

The Management Committee for Milk and Milk Products has not delivered an opinion within the time limit set by its chairman,

1.

Paragraph 1 is replaced by the following:

2.

In paragraph 2, in the first subparagraph, the following is added:

‘By way of derogation from the first sentence of Article 5(1), Section 16 of licence applications and licences shall show the eight-digit product code of the Combined Nomenclature’.

3.

In paragraph 3, the following subparagraph is added:

‘However, in respect of applications for provisional licences to export cheese to the United States of America for the 2005 quota year by applicants established in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia (‘new Member States’) and applying in their Member State of establishment, the following transitional measures shall apply:

4.

In paragraph 10, the third subparagraph is replaced by the following:

‘The security for the full licence shall be released only on presentation of the export declaration duly endorsed by the competent customs authority’.