Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 1493/1999 of 17 May 1999 on the common organisation of the market in wine(1), as amended by Regulation (EC) No 2826/2000(2) and in particular Article 70(3) thereof,
In view of the establishment of the single market in the Community, which entails the abolition of boundaries between Member States, the authorities responsible for supervising the stocking and marketing of wine products must have the necessary means to carry out effective checks in accordance with uniform rules laid down at Community level.
Under Article 70(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1493/1999, wine products may be put into circulation within the Community only if accompanied by an officially checked accompanying document. Under Article 70(2) natural or legal persons who hold wine products are to be obliged to keep goods inwards and outwards registers in respect of those products.
Steps towards tax harmonisation within the Community have been taken by Council Directive 92/12/EEC of 25 February 1992 on the general arrangements for products subject to excise duty and on the holding, movement and monitoring of such products(3), as last amended by Directive 2000/47/EC(4) and Commission Regulations (EEC) No 2719/92 of 11 September 1992 on the accompanying administrative document for the movement under duty-suspension arrangements of products subject to excise duty(5), as last amended by Regulation (EEC) No 2225/93(6), and (EEC) No 3649/92 of 17 December 1992 on a simplified accompanying document for the intra-Community movement of products subject to excise duty which have been released for consumption in the Member State of dispatch(7). In order to establish uniform rules applicable within the Community and to simplify administrative formalities for businesses and individuals, the Community rules should be reviewed in the light of experience and of the requirements of the single market. In particular, documents accompanying the carriage of wine products for tax purposes should also be used to guarantee the authenticity of the products concerned.
The abovementioned provisions concerning the drawing up of accompanying administrative documents and the simplified accompanying document refer to rules on the certification of the origin and quality of certain types of wine. The rules for such certification should therefore be laid down. Rules must also be laid down for the certification of the origin of certain wines for carriage not subject to tax formalities, in particular for export. In order to simplify administrative formalities for individuals and to remove the burden of routine tasks from the competent authorities, provision should be made for the latter to authorise consignors fulfilling certain conditions to enter the wording certifying the origin of the wine in the accompanying document, without prejudice to completion of the relevant checks.
The carriage of wine products not subject to the abovementioned tax formalities should be accompanied by a document to enable the competent authorities to monitor the movement of such products. Any commercial document containing the details necessary for identifying the product and for tracking its movements may be recognised for that purpose.
The monitoring of wine products transported in bulk requires particular care since such products are more susceptible to fraudulent practices than are labelled, bottled products fitted with a non-reusable closing device. Additional information and prior validation of the accompanying document should be required in such cases.
In order to avoid needlessly complicating administrative formalities, no document should be required for carriage meeting certain criteria.
The documents accompanying the carriage of wine products and the relevant entries made in the registers constitute a whole. In order to ensure that by consulting the registers the competent authorities are able effectively to monitor the movement and stocking of wine products, in particular in the course of cooperation between those authorities in the different Member States, the rules concerning the keeping of records should be harmonised at Community level.
The substances used in certain oenological practices, especially enrichment, acidification and sweetening, are particularly open to the danger of fraudulent use. Records must therefore be kept concerning those substances to enable the competent authorities to supervise their movement and use.
The accompanying document for the carriage of wine products laid down by Community rules is a very useful source of information for the bodies responsible for ensuring compliance with Community and national rules in the wine sector. Member States should be allowed to lay down additional rules for the purpose of applying this Regulation for carriage beginning on their own territory.
Article 18(1) of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2238/93 of 26 July 1993(8) on the documentsaccompanying the carriage of wine products and the records to be kept in the wine sector, as last amended by Commission Regulation (EC) No 1592/1999 of 20 July 1999(9), introduces the possibility for the Member States to lay down additional or specific provisions for the products in question in circulation on their territory. One of those provisions stipulates that details of the density of grape may be replaced, for a transitional period, by a reference to the density expressed in degrees Oechsle. That transitional period originally expired on 31 August 1996 and was extended until 31 July 2000. This traditional practice is used mainly by small agricultural producers who still need several years to adopt the new rules on density. The date in question should therefore be replaced by 31 July 2002.
The Italian version of Commission Regulation (EC) No 2238/93 as published in the Official Journal in 1993 contains an error. The first subparagraph of Article 4(2) of the Italian version of the Regulation refers to Article 9 of Directive 92/12/EEC rather than to Directive 92/12/EEC in its entirety. The Italian authorities applied the Italian version of the Regulation and in order to permit them to take the steps necessary to apply the new, corrected text without creating difficulties for operators, Article 4(2) of this Regulation should enter into force six months later in Italy.
The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Management Committee for Wine,