Chapter VIII, Article 28 · FRM Regulation

Contents

Article 28Official controls on FRM#

1.Member States shall designate their competent authority or authorities and confer on them the responsibility to organise or perform official controls and other official activities. Those competent authorities may be the same authorities as those designated in accordance with Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2017/625.

10.Any decision taken by the competent authority pursuant to Article 66(3) and (6), Article 137(3) or Article 138(1) and (2) of Regulation (EU) 2017/625 concerning natural or legal persons shall be subject to such persons’ right of appeal in accordance with national law.

11.Methods used for sampling and laboratory analyses, tests and diagnoses for the purpose of determining the information as referred to in Article 5(3) shall comply with the International Seed Testing Association’s rules, or other comparable international standards, establishing those methods or the performance criteria for those methods.

2.The competent authorities shall have arrangements in place to ensure:

(a)the effectiveness and appropriateness of official controls and other official activities;

(b)the impartiality, quality and consistency of official controls and other official activities;

(c)that staff performing official controls and other official activities have no conflicts of interest;

(d)that staff performing official controls and other official activities are suitably qualified, experienced and trained for the performance of their duties; and

(e)that appropriate facilities and equipment are at the disposal of the staff for the performance of official controls and other official activities.

For the purposes of the first subparagraph, point (c), commercial activities related to FRM which are carried out by the staff of the competent authorities on behalf of their Member State shall not represent any conflict of interest.

3.Competent authorities shall have the legal powers to perform official controls and other official activities and the legal procedures in place to ensure that staff have access to the premises of, and documents kept by, professional operators.

4.Competent authorities shall perform official controls on all professional operators on a risk-based basis and with appropriate frequency, taking into account:

(a)identified risks of non-compliance with this Regulation and the evolution of those risks;

(b)the activities under the control of professional operators; and

(c)any information indicating the likelihood that buyers of FRM might be misled, in particular as to the nature, identity, properties, composition, quantity, country of origin, or provenance of FRM.

5.Member States may collect fees or charges to cover the costs of official controls and other official activities.

6.Member States shall ensure that adequate financial resources are available to provide the staff and other resources necessary for the competent authorities to perform official controls and other official activities. This also applies in the case of delegation of certain official control tasks and certain tasks related to other official activities.

7.Competent authorities may delegate certain official control tasks to delegated bodies or natural persons pursuant to Article 28(1) and Articles 29 to 31, except Article 29, point (b)(iv), of Regulation (EU) 2017/625. Competent authorities that have delegated certain official control tasks or certain tasks related to other official activities to delegated bodies or natural persons shall organise audits or inspections of those bodies or persons as necessary to ensure the appropriate performance of those tasks. Competent authorities shall avoid duplication of audits and inspections, taking into account any accreditation of the delegated bodies in accordance with standards relevant to the delegated tasks.

8.Member States shall ensure that the Commission is informed of the contact details and of any changes regarding the competent authorities designated in accordance with paragraph 1. That information shall also be made available by Member States to the public, including on the internet.

9.The Commission may adopt implementing acts laying down rules on uniform practical arrangements for the performance of the official controls to verify compliance with the rules on FRM regarding:

(a)specification of the arrangements referred to in paragraph 2;

(b)specific reporting obligations of the delegated bodies and natural persons referred to in paragraph 7.

Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 32(2).

Defined terms · 47

Show every defined term

afforestation
means the establishment of forest through planting or deliberate seeding, including the planting or deliberate seeding of regionally adapted tree species, on land that was, until then, under a different land use and implies a transformation of land use from non-forest to forest;
autochthonous seed source or stand
means a seed source or stand which has been continuously and naturally regenerated or which has been artificially regenerated from FRM collected in the same seed source or stand or in other autochthonous seed sources or stands in close proximity to that seed source or stand;
basic material
means any of the following types of material as referred to in the table set out in Annex VI: seed source, stand, seed orchard, parents of a family, clone or clonal mixture;
category
means the classification of FRM as source-identified, selected, qualified or tested material;
clonal mixture
means a mixture of identified clones in defined proportions;
clone
means a single individual or group of individuals (ramets) derived originally from a single individual (ortet) by vegetative propagation, for example by cuttings, micropropagation, grafts, layers or divisions, or derived originally from cell lines;
competent authority
means:
delegated body
means a separate legal person to which the competent authority has delegated certain official control tasks or certain tasks related to other official activities;
deployment area
means the area designated by the competent authorities in which FRM belonging to the ‘qualified’ and ‘tested’ categories is adapted to the climatic and ecological conditions of that area;
documentary check
means the examination of master certificates and other documents;
FOREMATIS
means the Forest Reproductive Material Information System of the Commission;
foundation stock
means a plant, group of plants, FRM, DNA stock or genetic information of the clone, or clones in case of clonal mixture, that serves as reference material for the verification of the identity of the clone or clones concerned;
FRM
means seed units, parts of plants and planting stock that belong to tree species listed in Annex I and their hybrids and are intended to be used for afforestation, reforestation, diversification in a forest plot and other tree planting and direct seeding, for one or more of the following purposes:
genetically modified organism
means a genetically modified organism as defined in Article 2, point (2), of Directive 2001/18/EC, excluding organisms obtained through the techniques of genetic modification listed in Annex I B to that Directive;
in the right place
means that the FRM is genetically and phenotypically suited to the site where it is grown, including the relevant climate projections for it.
indigenous seed source or stand
means a seed source or stand located in a specific region of provenance that is part of the natural distribution range of the species concerned, raised from seed or vegetatively propagated, the origin of which is situated within the same region of provenance;
location of the basic material
means the geographical area or geographical position or positions of the basic material, as appropriate for each category of FRM;
lot
means any of the following: a seed lot, a seed unit lot, a plant lot or a parts of plants lot;
lot code
means the identification code of a lot;
marketing
means the following actions conducted by a professional operator in relation to FRM, whether free of charge or not:
natural regeneration
means the renewal of the forest by natural processes, including natural seeding, sprouting, suckering or layering;
official certification
means both the procedure leading to the issuance, and the issuance itself, of either a master certificate or of an official label, in accordance with this Regulation;
official controls
means activities to verify compliance with this Regulation performed by the competent authorities responsible for the organisation of those activities or by the bodies to which or the natural persons to whom certain of those activities have been delegated;
origin
means the following:
other official activities
means activities concerning the approval of basic material and the production and marketing of FRM other than official controls, performed by the competent authorities or by the bodies to which or the natural persons to whom certain of those activities have been delegated;
parents of a family
means trees used as parents to obtain progeny by controlled or open pollination of one identified parent used as a female with the pollen of one parent (full sibling) or a number of identified or unidentified parents (half-sibling);
parts of plants
means stem cuttings, with or without roots, leaf cuttings and root cuttings, explants or embryos used for micropropagation, buds, layers, roots, scions and any other parts of a plant used for the production of planting stock;
parts of plants lot
means a set of parts of plants collected and processed uniformly;
plant lot
means a set of plants that have been grown from a single seed lot or from vegetatively propagated planting stock which has been raised in a delineable area and processed uniformly;
planting stock
means any plant or part of a plant used in plant propagation and comprises plants raised from seed units, from parts of plants or from plants from natural regeneration;
production
means all stages in the generation of lots of FRM for marketing, including the harvesting, collection, storage, processing and distribution, and the dispatching during those stages, as well as the conversion of seed unit lots and parts of plants lots and the growing, multiplying, maintaining, storage and harvesting of plant lots;
professional operator
means any natural or legal person professionally in charge of the production or marketing, or both, of FRM;
provenance
means the name of the place in which any seed source or stand is growing;
qualified
means a category of FRM derived from basic material consisting of seed orchards, parents of a family, clones or clonal mixtures, the components of which have been selected at the individual level and which meets the requirements set out in Annex IV;
quality pests
means pests:
reforestation
means the re-establishment of forest through planting, deliberate seeding, vegetative propagation or natural regeneration on land classified as forest;
region of provenance
means the area or group of areas subject to sufficiently uniform ecological conditions in which stands or seed sources showing similar phenotypic or genetic characteristics are found, taking into account, where appropriate, altitudinal boundaries;
seed lot
means a set of seeds collected from approved basic material and processed uniformly;
seed orchard
means a plantation of selected trees where each individual tree is identified by a clone or family and that plantation is isolated or managed in order to avoid or reduce pollination from outside sources and managed to produce frequent, abundant and easily harvested crops of seed units;
seed source
means the trees within a defined area from which FRM is collected;
seed unit
means cones, infructescences, fruits and seeds intended for the production of planting stock or for direct seeding;
seed unit lot
means a set of seed units collected from approved basic material and processed uniformly;
selected
means a category of FRM derived from basic material consisting of a stand located within a single region of provenance, which has been selected at the population level and which meets the requirements set out in Annex III;
source-identified
means a category of FRM derived from basic material consisting of either a seed source or a stand located within a single region of provenance and which meets the requirements set out in Annex II;
stand
means a delineated population of trees which is sufficiently uniform in composition;
tested
means a category of FRM derived from basic material consisting of stands, seed orchards, parents of a family, clones or clonal mixtures, where the superiority of that FRM has been demonstrated by comparative testing or an estimate of the superiority of the FRM has been calculated on the basis of the genetic evaluation of the components of the basic material, and which meets the requirements set out in Annex V;
unit of approval
means the entire area of basic material or one or more individuals of basic material intended for the production of FRM that has been authorised by the competent authorities;