To avoid any risk of ambiguity, Article 2(3) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 917/20042 should clearly lay down that measures in apiculture programmes must be implemented before the end of the year to which they relate.

The possibility of amending the financial limits for each measure in an apiculture programme during a year without such amendment needing to be approved in accordance with the procedure at Article 5 of Regulation (EC) No 797/2004 is currently restricted to a maximum of 20 % of those financial limits.

This limit of 20 % has proved administratively too restrictive for both the Member States and the Commission. It should therefore be abolished.

To achieve simplification, the adjustment of measures in the apiculture programmes during a year should be made more flexible; the limits on a new budgetary allocation by type of measure within the budget allocated to each Member State should therefore be abolished.

There should be provision for adjustments to the measures in the apiculture programmes to be notified to the Commission where certain measures were not notified in the three-year programme forwarded initially.

Regulation (EC) No 917/2004 should be amended accordingly.

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