Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 543/2011Show full title

TITLE V U.K. GENERAL, TRANSITIONAL AND FINAL PROVISIONS

Article 143 U.K. Checks

Without prejudice to specific provisions of this Regulation or other Union legislation, Member States shall introduce checks and measures in so far as they are necessary to ensure the proper application of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 and this Regulation. They shall be effective, proportionate and dissuasive so that they provide adequate protection for the financial interests of the Union.

In particular, they shall ensure that:

(a)

all eligibility criteria established by Union or national legislation or the national framework or the national strategy can be checked;

(b)

the competent authorities of the Member State responsible for carrying out checks have a sufficient number of suitably qualified and experienced staff to carry out the checks effectively; and

(c)

provision is made for checks to avoid irregular duplicated financing of measures under this Regulation and other Union or national schemes.

Article 144 U.K. National sanctions

Without prejudice to any sanctions set out in this Regulation or Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007, Member States shall provide for the application of sanctions at national level in relation to irregularities committed in respect of requirements set out in this Regulation and Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 which are effective, proportionate and dissuasive so that they provide adequate protection for the financial interests of the Union.

Article 145 U.K. Artificially created situations

Without prejudice to any specific measures set out in this Regulation or Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007, 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 support scheme concerned.

Article 146 U.K. Notifications

1. Member States shall designate a single competent authority or body responsible for fulfilling the notification obligations with respect to each one of the following topics:

(a) producer organisations, associations of producer organisations and producer groups, as provided for in Article 97 of this Regulation;

(b) producer prices of fruit and vegetable in the internal market, as provided for in Article 98 of this Regulation;

(c) prices and quantities of the products imported from third countries sold on the representative import markets, as provided for in Article 134 of this Regulation;

(d) import volumes put into free circulation, as provided for in Article 139 of this Regulation.

2. Member States shall notify the Commission of the designation and the contact details of the authority or body concerned, and every change of this information.

The list of the designated authorities or body containing their names and addresses shall be made available to the Member States and to the public by every appropriate means via the information systems put in place by the Commission, including publication on the Internet.

3. Without prejudice to any specific provisions of this Regulation, all notifications to be made by Member States to the Commission under this Regulation shall be made by electronic means of the information system made available to the competent authorities or bodies of the Member States by the Commission and in the format specified by the Commission.

Notifications not made by the means and in the format referred to in the first subparagraph may be considered as not made at all, without prejudice to paragraph 5.

4. 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 notifications set out in this Regulation.

5. If a Member State fails to make a notification as required under this Regulation or Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 or if the notification 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 Council Regulation (EC) No 1290/2005(1) as regards the fruit and vegetables sectors until the notification is correctly made.

Article 147 U.K. Obvious errors

Any notification, claim or request made to a Member State under this Regulation or Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007, including an aid application, may be adjusted at any time after its submission in cases of obvious errors recognised by the competent authority of the Member State.

Article 148 U.K. Force majeure and exceptional circumstances

Where, under this Regulation or Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007, a sanction or penalty is to be imposed or a benefit or recognition is to be withdrawn, the sanction or penalty shall not be imposed or the withdrawal made in cases of force majeure or exceptional circumstances within the meaning of Article 31 of Regulation (EC) No 73/2009.

However, the case of force majeure shall be notified, with relevant evidence to the satisfaction of the competent authority of the Member State, to the authority within 10 working days of the date on which the person concerned is in a position to do so.

Article 149 U.K. Repeal

Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 is repealed.

However, Article 134 of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 shall continue to apply until 31 August 2011.

References to the repealed Regulation shall be construed as references to this Regulation and shall, where appropriate, be read in accordance with the correlation table set out in Annex XIX.

Article 150 U.K. Transitional provisions

1. Operational programmes which benefit from Article 203a(3)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 may continue to run until their end provided they comply with the rules applicable prior to 1 January 2008.

2. For the purposes of Article 203a(6) of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007, the rules on the minimum characteristics of the raw material supplied for processing and minimum quality requirements for finished products which shall remain applicable in respect of the raw materials harvested in the territory of Member States which make use of the transitional arrangement referred to in that paragraph shall be, in addition to any relevant marketing standards referred to in Title II of this Regulation, those contained in the Commission Regulations listed in Annex XX.

3. Recognition plans accepted under Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 which continue to benefit from acceptance pursuant to Article 203a(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 for producer groups not in Member States which acceded to the European Union on 1 May 2004 or after that date and not in the outermost regions of the Union as referred to in Article 349 of the Treaty or in the smaller Aegean Islands as referred to in Article 1(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1405/2006(2) shall be financed at the rates set out in Article 103a(3)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007.

Recognition plans accepted under Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 which benefited from Article 14(7) of that Regulation and continue to benefit from acceptance pursuant to Article 203a(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 shall be financed at the rates set out in Article 103a(3)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007.

4. Member States shall modify their national strategies by 15 September 2011 at the latest if necessary in order to:

(a) duly justify what distance shall be considered as significant as referred to in Article 50(7)(b);

(b) set out a maximum percentage of the annual expenditure under an operational programme to be spent on actions related to the environmental management on packaging as referred to in the second subparagraph of Article 60(4).

5. Operational programmes that were approved before the date of entry into force of this Regulation may continue to run until their end without fulfilling the maximum percentage provided for by the second subparagraph of Article 60(4).

Article 151 U.K. Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on the seventh day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

(1)

OJ L 209, 11.8.2005, p. 1.

(2)

OJ L 265, 26.9.2006, p. 1.