Introductory text

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular Article 113 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Whereas the additional protocols to the Agreements between, on the one hand, the European Economic Community and, on the other hand, Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and Yugoslavia have been concluded;

Whereas, for certain agricultural products concerned by the said Agreements and originating in those countries, those protocols provide for a progressive reduction of certain duties applied to those products; whereas certain of those products are subject to reference quantities;

Whereas, under the terms of the said protocols, the possibility exists of modfying the status of those products in the event of difficulties on the Community market or when the reference quantities are exceeded;

Whereas procedures should be established for the modification of the status of such products so as to make them subject to reference quantities in the event of such difficulties or to tariff quotas when the reference quantities are exceeded; whereas those procedures should be conducted through the Management Committee relevant to the products in question;

Whereas such a modification of status should be based on an annual review of trade flows by product and by country; whereas the object of that review is to follow developments in trade, to prevent market disruptions and to ascertain the extent to which the objective of maintaining traditional patterns of trade with the countries concerned has been achieved,

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