TITLE VIGENERAL, TRANSITIONAL AND FINAL PROVISIONS
Article 96Payments to beneficiaries
Payments under Title II, with the exception of Article 9, and under Title V of Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 shall be made in full to the beneficiaries.
By way of derogation from the first paragraph, Member States may decide to pay the support referred to in Article 14(1) of Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 through insurance companies as intermediaries provided that:
- (a)
the conditions referred to in Article 14(4) of Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 are respected;
- (b)
the amount of the aid is transferred in full to the producer;
- (c)
the insurance company pays the aid to the producer either in advance or through a bank or a postal transfer within fifteen days after receiving the payment from the Member State.
The use of such intermediaries for payments shall be such as not to distort competitive conditions on the insurance market.
Payments shall be subject to prior checks as provided by the present Regulation, except for advance payments guaranteed by a security.
Article 97Recovery of undue payments
Undue payments shall be recovered, with interest, from the beneficiaries concerned. The rules fixed in Article 73 of Regulation (EC) No 796/2004 shall apply mutatis mutandis.
Implementation of administrative sanctions and recovery of unduly paid amounts are without prejudice to communication of irregularities to the Commission pursuant to Commission Regulation (EC) No 1848/200622.
Article 98National sanctions
Without prejudice to any sanctions set out in Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 or in this Regulation, Member States shall provide for the application of sanctions at national level in relation to irregularities committed in respect of requirements set out in Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 and in this Regulation which are effective, proportionate and dissuasive so that they provide adequate protection for the Communities’ financial interests.
Article 99Artificially created situations
Without prejudice to any specific measures set out in Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 or in this Regulation, no payment shall be made in favour of beneficiaries for whom it is established that they artificially created the conditions required for obtaining such payments with a view to obtaining an advantage contrary to the objectives of the measure concerned.
Article 100Communications
1
Without prejudice to any specific provisions of this Regulation, the communications to be made under this Regulation shall be in the format set out in its Annexes, in the form of files created in a spreadsheet application program. They shall be transmitted to the Commission also in electronic form. Where a Member State compiles data on a regional basis, it shall send the Commission also a table summarising the data of the regions.
Communications not made by the specified means and in the specified format may be considered as not made at all, without prejudice to paragraph 4.
2
Where concerning a given table a Member State would have to communicate only zero values, it may choose not to fill in the table but simply communicate to the Commission that the given table is not relevant to it. This simplified communication shall take place by the same deadline as the one fixed for the table concerned.
3
Without prejudice to any specific provisions of this Regulation, Member States shall take all measures necessary to ensure that they are able to meet the deadlines for communications set out in this Regulation.
4
If a Member State fails to make a communication as required under Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 or this Regulation or if the communication appears incorrect in the light of objective facts in the Commission's possession, the Commission may suspend part or all of the monthly payments referred to in Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005 as regards the wine sector until the communication is correctly made.
5
Member States shall retain the information recorded under this Regulation for at least 10 wine years following the one during which it was recorded.
6
The communications requested in this Regulation shall not prejudice the Member States’ obligations laid down in Council Regulation (EEC) 357/79 on statistical surveys of areas under vines23.
Article 101Obvious errors
Any communication, claim or request made to a Member State under Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 or this Regulation, including an aid application, may be adjusted at any time after its submission in cases of obvious errors recognised by the competent authority.
Article 102Force majeure and exceptional circumstances
Where, under Regulation (EC) No 479/2008 or this Regulation, a sanction is to be imposed it shall not be imposed in cases of force majeure or exceptional circumstances within the meaning of Article 40(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003.
Article 103Repeal and references
1
Regulations (EC) No 1227/2000, (EC) No 1623/2000, (EC) No 2729/2000 and (EC) No 883/2001 are repealed.
However,
a
the relevant rules set out in Regulations (EC) No 1227/2000 and (EC) No 1623/2000 shall continue to apply in so far as measures eligible under Regulation (EC) No 1493/1999 have been commenced or undertaken before 1 August 2008;
b
Table 10 of the Annex to Regulation (EC) No 1227/2000 shall continue to apply unless otherwise provided in an implementing regulation on the labelling and presentation of wines to be adopted on the basis of Article 63 of Regulation (EC) No 479/2008;
c
Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 1623/2000 shall remain in force until 31 July 2012.
2
References to the repealed Regulations in accordance with paragraph 1 shall be construed as references to this Regulation and shall be read in accordance with the correlation table in Annex XXII.
Article 104Entry into force
This Regulation shall enter into force on the third day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
It shall apply from 1 August 2008.
However, Article 2 and Chapter III of Title IV shall apply as from 30 June 2008.