The competent authorities may re-open a closed production or relaying area only if the health standards for live bivalve molluscs comply once again with the relevant requirements of Chapter V of Section VII of Annex III to Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 and present no other risk to human health.

Where the competent authorities have closed a production or relaying area because of the presence of plankton or levels of toxins in live bivalve molluscs that exceed the regulatory limit for marine biotoxins laid down in point 2 of Chapter V of Section VII of Annex III to Regulation (EC) No 853/2004, they may re-open it only if at least two consecutive analytical results separated by at least 48 hours are below the regulatory limit.

When deciding whether to re-open a production or relaying area, the competent authorities may take account of information on phytoplankton trends.

Where there are robust data on the dynamic of the toxicity for a given area, and provided that recent data on decreasing trends of toxicity are available, the competent authorities may decide to re-open an area with results below the regulatory limit in point 2 of Chapter V of Section VII of Annex III to Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 obtained from a single sampling.