On receipt of an application for the authorisation of a traditional food from a third country the Commission shall without delay verify whether the application fulfils the requirements of Articles 4 to 6.

The Commission may request additional information from the applicant on matters regarding the validity of the application and inform the applicant of the period within which that information shall be provided.

By way of derogation from paragraph 1 of this Article and without prejudice to Article 16 of Regulation (EU) 2015/2283, an application may be considered valid even if it does not contain all the elements required under Articles 4 to 6 of this Regulation, provided that the applicant has submitted verifiable justification for each missing element.

The Commission shall inform the applicant, the Member States and the Authority whether the application is considered valid or not. If the application is not considered valid, the Commission shall indicate the reasons why it is not valid.