(1)

Experience of the implementation of Commission Regulation (EC) No 27/2008 of 15 January 2008 opening and providing for the administration of certain annual tariff quotas for products covered by CN codes 0714 10 91, 0714 10 99, 0714 90 11 and 0714 90 19 originating in certain third countries other than Thailand (2) has shown that, in the interests of sound management of the quotas, some adjustments should be made to that Regulation.

(2)

In the interests of sound management of the quotas and in the light of experience, market fluidity should be improved for the products in question and better use of the quotas ensured. Operators should thus be permitted to submit more than one licence application per quota period and there should therefore be a derogation from Article 6(1) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1301/2006 (3).

(3)

To ensure that the quotas are managed on the basis of the quota year in question, it should be specified that if licence applications are lodged in December and these applications relate to the following year’s quota, Member States are not to forward such applications to the Commission until the first period of the following year.

(4)

In order to rationalise and simplify the Commission’s procedure for following up applications and to reduce the number of communications to be sent by Member States to the Commission, the number of communications to the Commission should be limited to one per week.

(5)

When Commission Regulation (EC) No 2449/96 of 18 December 1996 opening and providing for the administration of certain annual tariff quotas for products covered by CN codes 0714 10 91, 0714 10 99, 0714 90 11 and 0714 90 19 originating in certain third countries other than Thailand (4) was codified, by means of Regulation (EC) No 27/2008, the CN code 0714 10 99 was reproduced without taking account of the amended numbering of the Combined Nomenclature codes introduced by Commission Regulation (EC) No 1214/2007 (5), which replaced CN code 0714 10 99 by CN code ex 0714 10 98. The Regulation should therefore be amended and its title corrected.

(6)

The allocation of quantities reserved for WTO member countries and WTO non-member countries (1 320 590 tonnes and 32 000 tonnes respectively) is unclear in Article 1 of Regulation (EC) No 27/2008. To avoid confusion, the wording of that provision should be amended.

(7)

Regulation (EC) No 27/2008 should therefore be amended and corrected accordingly.

(8)

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

1.

In Article 1 the following paragraph is inserted after the first paragraph:

‘For the purposes of this Regulation, “products covered by CN code ex 0714 10 98” means products other than pellets of flour and meal covered by CN code 0714 10 98.’

2.

Article 8 is amended as follows:

1.

In the title the CN code ‘0714 10 99’ is replaced by ‘ex 0714 10 98’.

2.

The first paragraph of Article 1 is corrected as follows: