Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Decision 2003/17/EC by extending its period of application and by updating the names of a third country and of the authorities responsible for the approval and control of the production

Council Directives on the marketing of fodder plant seed, cereal seed, beet seed and seed of oil and fibre plants regulate the internal marketing of seed for sowing of the plant species as listed by those Directives. To facilitate trades and to promptly respond to the marketing request, those Directives foresee the possibility for the Council to establish rules for authorising the importation of seed under an equivalence system from third countries.

Council Decision 2003/17/EC provided the list of countries to be recognised for the application of the equivalence principle for importation, detailed requirements to be fulfilled, and in particular to limit the period for which equivalence is recognised to five years to be extended if all the relevant requirements are fulfilled.

That period will expire on 31 December 2012. In order to ensure the necessary supply of seed to the EU market, these rules must be prolonged by amending the deadline until 31 December 2022. Currently, the temporary extension is foreseen for only 5 years. However, the revision of the new Regulation on S&PM (under co-decision procedures) will be launched in September 2012, with specific implementing measures to be adopted thereafter. Therefore, a time limit of ten years seems necessary to avoid the expiration within this process.

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)343: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:343:FIN

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