# Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/820 of 31 May 2018 granting a derogation requested by the Netherlands pursuant to Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources (notified under document C(2018) 3222) (Only the Dutch text is authentic), Article 4: General conditions for the derogation

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

The derogation is granted on the following conditions:
(1) The Netherlands shall monitor the amount of manure produced and shall ensure that manure production at national level both in terms of nitrogen and phosphorus will not increase beyond the level of the year 2002 corresponding to 504,4 million kg of nitrogen and 172,9 million kg of phosphate.
(2) The Netherlands shall establish an enhanced enforcement strategy aiming at strengthening the compliance with the rules on Dutch manure policy and at ensuring that any information pointing at situations of non-compliance is followed up effectively.
The enhanced enforcement strategy shall, as a minimum, include the following elements:
(a) an independent assessment of the scale and scope of cases of deliberate non-compliance with the national rules on manure. This assessment should be carried out by the competent national authorities responsible for inspections of the national manure rules together with the competent national authorities responsible for investigating and prosecuting offences of a criminal nature;
(b) an identification of the areas of manure handling and management with higher risk of deliberate non-compliance with the national rules on manure;
(c) a strengthening of the capacity for inspections and controls, which is at least equal to 40 % of the capacity required for the field inspections of grassland farms covered by authorisations referred to in Article 10(2), including random, and a better targeting of that capacity to risk areas of manure handling and management;
(d) a clear methodology for establishing sufficiently effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties and sanctions.
The enhanced enforcement strategy shall be put in place and notified to the Commission by 30 September 2018 at the latest and shall be revised, if needed, on the basis of the findings made in the context of the measures referred to in points (a) to (d).

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2018/820/article/4 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2018-820/article-4
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.