(1)

Article 11 of Regulation (EC) No 1182/2007 provides that national financial assistance may be granted in regions where the degree of organisation of producers is particularly low. This assistance should be additional to the operational fund. In order to permit a producer organisation to include the additional support in its operational programme, the operational programme should be amended if necessary. In this case Member States should be able to increase the percentage limit set in Article 67(2)(c) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 (2) by which the amount of the operational fund initially approved can be increased.

(2)

Article 82(2)(d) of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 provides that payment for transport costs for free distribution shall be subject to the presentation of documents certifying the transport costs actually incurred. However, the transport costs related to free distribution are financed by flat-rate amounts set in Annex XI to that Regulation, so there is no need for such information, but instead information should be required on the distance which is used as a basis for the calculation of the flat-rate amount.

(3)

It is appropriate to change the date set in Article 94(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 by which Member States shall submit a request to the Commission for authorisation to grant national financial assistance to producer organisations to 31 January, in order to take into account the existing possibility for Member States to postpone the approval of operational programmes and funds until 20 January.

(4)

Article 97(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 establishes that Member States should request Community reimbursement of approved national financial assistance actually paid to producer organisations before 1 March of the year following the yearly implementation of the operational programmes. Since Member States pay the producer organisations by 15 October of the year following the year of implementation of the programme, the deadline for Member States to request reimbursement from the Commission, should therefore be extended to 1 January of the second year following the year of implementation of the programme.

(5)

The fourth subparagraph of Article 116(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 provides that Member States may make payments after the deadline set out in Article 71 of that Regulation where this is necessary. However, a final deadline should be set for such payments for reasons of good financial management. A similar set of provisions should also be added to Article 116(3) of that Regulation for the same reasons.

(6)

Point (b) of the first paragraph of Article 122 of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 requires that producer organisations be required to reimburse the Community contribution where recipients of products withdrawn from the market are obliged to repay the value of the products they received plus the related sorting, packaging and transport costs due to irregularities. However, producer organisations should not be made responsible for irregularities attributable to the recipients of withdrawn products and therefore this requirement should be removed.

(7)

In order to ensure legal certainty and equality between Member States, it should be made clear that for operational programmes implemented in 2007 provisions identical to those contained in Commission Regulation (EC) No 544/2001 of 20 March 2001 laying down rules for the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 as regards additional financial assistance to operational funds (3) should continue to apply.

(8)

Article 47(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 provides that applications for aid covering semestrial periods may be submitted only if the recognition plan is broken into semestrial periods. However, such applications could be made for plans approved prior to 2008 under Council Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 of 28 October 1996 on the common organization of the market in fruit and vegetables (4). It is appropriate to provide for a transitional measure to allow for such applications in this case.

(9)

In the interests of legal certainty, and to ensure a smooth transition between the regime under Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 and that under Regulation (EC) No 1182/2007, it is important to clarify that the aid rates should remain unchanged for recognition plans accepted under Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 which continue to benefit from acceptance pursuant to Article 55(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1182/2007 for producer groups not in Member States which acceded to the Community on 1 May 2004 or after that date and not in the outermost regions of the Community as referred to in Article 299(2) of the Treaty or in the smaller Aegean islands as referred to in Article 1(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1405/2006 of 18 September 2006 laying down specific measures for agriculture in favour of the smaller Aegean islands and amending Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 (5) and for producer groups which benefitted from Article 14(7) of Regulation (EC) No 2200/96.

(10)

In the interests of legal certainty, and to protect acquired rights, it is important to clarify that payments of Community withdrawal compensation and related checks which concern 2007 withdrawals but which were not yet made by 31 December 2007 may nevertheless be made after that date in accordance with the rules in force at that date.

(11)

In the interests of legal certainty, and to protect legitimate expectations, it should be clarified that sanctions should not be applied on an application for aid for operational programmes implemented in 2007 for acts or omissions in that period which would be more severe than that applicable under the legislation in force at the time.

(12)

Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 should therefore be amended accordingly.

(13)

Given the difficulties of Member States to adapt to the new rules on national financial assistance in Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 for operational programmes implemented in 2007 and 2008, it is appropriate to adopt transitional rules to allow for derogations from the dates set in Article 94 of that Regulation.

(14)

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Management Committee for the Common Organisation of Agricultural Markets,

1.

in Article 67(2), point (c) is replaced by the following:

2.

in Article 82(2), point (d) is replaced by the following:

3.

in Article 94(1), the first subparagraph is replaced by the following:

‘Member States shall submit a request to the Commission for authorisation to grant national financial assistance pursuant to the first subparagraph of Article 11(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1182/2007 for operational programmes to be implemented in any given calendar year by 31 January of that year.’;

4.

after Article 94, the following Article 94a is inserted:

5.

in Article 97, paragraph 1 is replaced by the following:

6.

Article 116 is amended as follows:

7.

in point (b) of the first paragraph of Article 122, the second sentence is deleted;

8.

in Article 152, the following paragraphs are added: