Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1998/78 of 18 August 1978 laying down detailed rules for the offsetting of storage costs for sugar

1978R1998 — EN — 05.07.1993 — 001.001

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Amended by:

COMMISSION REGULATION (EEC) No 1998/78

of 18 August 1978

laying down detailed rules for the offsetting of storage costs for sugar

THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community,

Having regard to Council Regulation No 3330/74/EEC of 19 December 1974 on the common organization of the market in sugar (1), as last amended by Regulation (EEC) No 1396/78 (2), and in particular Article 8 (3) thereof,

Whereas Council Regulation (EEC) No 1358/77 of 20 June 1977 laying down general rules for offsetting storage costs for sugar (3), as amended by Regulation (EEC) No 1397/78 (4), provides for the reimbursement of storage costs not only to every sugar manufacturer to whom a basic quota has been allocated and to every sugar refiner, but also to every manufacturer of powdered, lump or candy sugar or specialized sugar trader who has been approved by the Member State on whose territory he is established whereas detailed rules were adopted in Commission Regulation (EEC) No 442/70 of 9 March 1970 laying down detailed rules for the application of the system of offsetting storage costs for sugar (5), as last amended by Regulation (EEC) No 1465/77 (6); whereas Regulation (EEC) No 442/70 has already been amended several times; whereas new amendments are needed in particular with regard to the extension of the system provided for in Article 8 of Regulation (EEC) No 3330/74 to syrups obtained directly from sugar in the solid state; whereas, therefore, in the interests of clarity a new Regulation should be introduced containing the detailed rules for the offsetting of storage costs;

Whereas the granting of reimbursement to these trades makes it necessary to define the terms ‘manufacturer of powdered, lump or candy sugar’ and ‘specialized sugar trader’; whereas for this purpose it is necessary to lay down certain objective criteria to be used for assessment, in particular as regards substantial participation in storing;

Whereas, in order not to hinder possible development of these activities, any applicant likely to fulfil the required conditions in the future should be approved; whereas provision should be made for recognition by a Member State of the approval given by the other Member States subject to certain conditions;

Whereas, in order to avoid abuse, approval must be withdrawn, where appropriate retroactively, when the conditions for granting that approval are not fulfilled;

Whereas, pursuant to Regulation (EEC) No 1358/77, reimbursements are granted only for quantities of white and raw sugar produced within the maximum quota and stored in a warehouse approved by the Member State on whose territory the warehouse is situated; whereas, therefore, it is necessary to limit approval in relation to the facilities for supervision by Member States and to compel those entitled to reimbursement to facilitate such supervision;

Whereas it should be clearly stated that no reimbursement of storage costs may be granted in respect of preferential sugar until the customs formalities on importation have been completed and the sugar stored in an approved warehouse;

Whereas the method of calculating reimbursements and levies must not, in the case of raw sugar, give rise to distortion of competition between that sugar and white sugar; whereas, to this end, raw sugar should be expressed in terms of white sugar, taking account, at the choice of the Member State concerned, of either the yield formula laid down in Council Regulation (EEC) No 431/68 of 9 April 1968 laying down the standard quality for raw sugar and fixing the Community frontier crossing point for calculating cif prices for sugar (7), or a fixed yield formula;

Whereas inclusion in the system of offsetting storage costs of certain syrups within the meaning of the third indent of the first subparagraph of Article 8 (1) of Regulation (EEC) No 3330/74, which must later be processed under supervision into sugar in the solid state, necessitates such syrups being stored in specal containers; whereas the reimbursements and the levies for these syrups should be calculated, at the choice of the Member State concerned, either according to the actual yield or according to the extractable sugar content; whereas the extractable sugar content is determined according to the method fixed uniformly for the Community in Article 1 (5) of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 700/73 of 12 March 1973 laying down certain detailed rules for the application of the quota system for sugar (8), as amended by Regulation (EEC) No 1573/76 (9);

Whereas, in the case of syrups obtained by dissolving sugar in the solid state, including those directly obtained from raw sugar, provision should be made for the use of a formula for calculating the sucrose content;

Whereas it should be specified that the consequence of flavouring, colouring or certain mixing operations is that no reimbursement of storage costs will be granted in respect of the resulting product;

Whereas Article 3 (2) of Regulation (EEC) No 1358/77 provides that, in special circumstances, special provisions may be adopted to deal with sugar in transit at the beginning of a month; whereas such special circumstances prevail in respect of raw sugar produced in the French overseas departments, in that practically none of the production is consumed on the spot; whereas the long distance between these departments and Europe means that transport takes several weeks; whereas, therefore, it is unavoidable that such sugar, as a general rule, should be in transit on the first day of a calendar month; whereas reimbursement should accordingly be limited to less than one month; whereas in the case of sugar transported from one approved warehouse to another within the same Member State, a system should be provided for which is analogous mutatis mutandis to that applied to cane sugar from the French overseas departments;

Whereas, as regards the levies, it should be specified when these are incurred; whereas, since sugar of different origins may be stored on the same premises, strict rules on controls and accounting should be laid down; whereas detailed rules should also be provided for the quantities to be taken into consideration;

Whereas, to enable the Member State to carry out the relevant controls and to make up the individual accounts in good time, each person concerned should be obliged to communicate the necessary information to the Member State;

Whereas claimants should be able to collect reimbursements as soon as possible; whereas, therefore, rapid payment of reimbursements must be envisaged; whereas to avoid different treatment being accorded in the various Member States the dates on which reimbursement is to be effected must be fixed; whereas, for administrative and economic reasons, the same dates should be specified for the payment of the storage costs levy;

Whereas for economic reasons the term ‘approved warehouse of the manufacturer’ should be extended to cover rented warehouses, provided these are approved by the Member State concerned and subject to prior consent by that Member State, save in cases where the processing contract under which the warehouse is rented has already been approved under Article 3 (2) (a) of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 700/73;

Whereas, under Article 5 of Regulation (EEC) No 1358/77, financing costs are to be taken into account for fixing the amount of reimbursement; whereas, therefore, it is appropriate not to grant the reimbursement of storage costs when the refund in respect of the sugar has been financed in advance pursuant to Council Regulation (EEC) No 441/69 of 4 March 1969 laying down further general rules on granting export refunds for products coming under a common price system, exported in the natural state or in the form of goods not listed in Annex II to the Treaty (10), as last amended by Regulation (EEC) No 1181/72 (11);

Whereas the reimbursement of storage costs applies only to the quantities of white sugar, of raw sugar and of syrups within the meaning of Article 8 of Regulation (EEC) No 3330/74 produced within the limit of the maximum quota; whereas, however, in a case where the provisions of Article 30 of that Regulation are not applicable, it is only known towards the end of the sugar marketing season whether any quantities of sugar have been produced in excess of the maximum quota; whereas, in the meantime, the manufacturers will have received a reimbursement to which they were not entitled; whereas, therefore, measures should be taken for the repayment of such reimbursement for the quantities in question;

Whereas the measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Management Committee for Sugar,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Such approval shall be granted by the Member State in which the person concerned is established or has his registered office.

(a)a ‘manufacturer of powdered, lump or candy sugar’ means a person:

—who is engaged in making from sugar in the unaltered state only those sugars which fall within code 1701 or 1702, excluding CN codes 1702 50 00 and 1702 90 10, and which have different physical characteristics from the sugar used in the process;

—whose  stocks entitled to benefit from reimbursement of storage costs during a sugar marketing year, recorded at the end of each month in approved warehouses, are on average not less than 200 tonnes; (b)a ‘specialized sugar trader’ means a person:

—one of whose main activities consists of wholesale dealing in sugar and who purchases in each sugar marketing year not less than 10 000 tonnes of sugar eligible for reimbursement of storage costs for resale in an unaltered state,

—who does not carry on a retail business in sugar, and —whose  stocks entitled to benefit from reimbursement of storage costs during a sugar marketing year, recorded at the end of each month in his approved warehouses, are on average not less than 500 tonnes.

An approval shall be valid from the beginning of the month following that in which it was granted.

—in the case of a manufacturer of powdered, lump or candy sugar the average of his  stocks entitled to benefit from reimbursement of storage costs in approved warehouses recorded at the end of each month of that marketing year was less than 160 tonnes, —in the case of a specialized sugar trader the average of his  stocks entitled to benefit from reimbursement of storage costs in approved warehouses recorded at the end of each month of that marketing year was less than 400 tonnes.

In such cases the Member State concerned shall demand the repayment by the person concerned of the sums paid to him by way of reimbursements of storage costs during the period in question.

Article 2

Article 3

The warehouses must consist of buildings or parts thereof.

The criteria for granting the approval of a warehouse referred to in paragraph 1 shall not apply to the temporary approval referred to in the first subparagraph.

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Article 5

The basis for calculating the reimbursement and the levies shall be the net weight of the sugar.

Article 6

The amounts of the reimbursement and the levies for white sugar shall be applicable per 100 kilograms, irrespective of the quality of the sugar in question.

Article 7

In calculating the reimbursement and the levies applicable to raw sugar the latter shall be converted into white sugar equivalent according to one of the following methods at the choice of the Member State concerned:

(a)on the basis of its yield, as determined according to the provisions of Article 1 of Regulation (EEC) No 431/68, or (b)for raw cane sugar by multiplying the quantity of raw sugar by 0·96, or (c)for raw beet sugar by multiplying the quantity of raw sugar by 0·92.

The method chosen by the Member States concerned shall remain unchanged during a given sugar marketing year.

Article 8

The extractable sugar content shall be determined according to the provisions of Article 1 (5) of Regulation (EEC) No 700/73. Alternatively, Member States may determine this content according to the actual yield. The method chosen by the Member State concerned shall remain unchanged during a given sugar marketing year.

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Article 9

When:

—sugar or syrup is flavoured or coloured, —syrup is mixed with a product not referred to in Article 8 of Regulation (EEC) No 3330/74, —sugar is mixed with a product not referred to in the said Article in such a way that the mixture no longer conforms to the definition, as laid down in Article 1 of the said Regulation, of white sugar or raw sugar,

the resulting product shall cease to be eligible for reimbursement.

Crystalline sugars which are coloured before the crystallization stage by means of a product derived exclusively from sucrose shall not be regarded as coloured within the meaning of the preceding subparagraph.

Article 10

Reimbursement shall be granted only to those entitled thereto as listed in Article 2 (1) of Regulation (EEC) No 1358/77 who were the owners of the sugar at the time of the storage referred to in the preceding subparagraph.

Article 11

Article 12