Commission Regulation (EC) No 1235/2008 of 8 December 2008 laying down detailed rules for implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 as regards the arrangements for imports of organic products from third countries

This Regulation lays down the detailed rules for the import of compliant products and the import of products providing equivalent guarantees as provided for in Articles 32 and 33 of Regulation (EC) No 834/2007.

For the purposes of this Regulation:

1. ‘certificate of inspection’: means the certificate of inspection referred to in Article 33(1)(d) of Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 covering one consignment;

2. ‘documentary evidence’: means the document referred to in Article 68 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 889/2008⁽¹⁾ and in Article 6 of this Regulation, for which the model is set out in Annex II to this Regulation;

3. ‘consignment’: means a quantity of products under one or more Combined Nomenclature codes, covered by a single certificate of inspection, conveyed by the same means of transport and imported from the same third country;

4. ‘first consignee’: means the natural or legal person as defined in Article 2(d) of Regulation (EC) No 889/2008;

5. ‘verification of the consignment’ means the verification carried out by the relevant Member State's competent authority, in the framework of the official controls provided for in Regulation (EC) No 882/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council⁽²⁾, of the fulfilment of the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 834/2007, of Regulation (EC) No 889/2008 and of this Regulation through systematic documentary checks, random identity checks and, as appropriate according to its risk assessment, physical checks, prior to the release of the consignment for free circulation into the Union in accordance with Article 13 of this Regulation;

6. ‘relevant Member State's competent authority’: means the customs authority, food safety authority or other authorities designated by the Member States pursuant to Article 27(1) of Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 responsible for the verification of the consignments and the endorsement of the certificates of inspection;

7. ‘assessment report’: means the assessment report referred to in Articles 32(2) and 33(3) of Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 drawn up by an independent third party fulfilling the requirements of ISO Standard 17011 or by a relevant competent authority, which includes information on document reviews, including the descriptions referred to in Articles 4(3)(b) and 11(3)(b) of this Regulation, on office audits, including critical locations and on risk-oriented witness audits conducted in representative third countries;

8. ‘aquaculture products’: means aquaculture products as defined in point 34 of Article 4(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council⁽³⁾;

9. ‘unprocessed’: means unprocessed as used in the definition of unprocessed products in point (n) of Article 2(1) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council⁽⁴⁾, irrespective of packaging or labelling operations;

10. ‘processed’: means processed as used in the definition of processed products in point (o) of Article 2(1) of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, irrespective of packaging or labelling operations;

11. ‘point of entry’: means the point of release for free circulation.