17. 9. 84 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 248/17 
2. Specific comments 
Article 1 (3) (B) (f) — Article 4a Re-draft to read: 
'(0 placing in quarantine in the country of desti­
nation for a period of 21 days'. 
Done at Brussels, 4 July 1984. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Francis CEYRAC 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the coordination of the 
actions of the Member States and the Commission related to the implementation of a 
long-term programme for the use of telematics for Community information systems con­
cerned with imports, exports and the management and financial control of agricultural 
market organizations 
(84/C 248/09) 
On 3 April 1984 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, 
under Article 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, on 
the abovementioned proposal. 
The Section for Industry, Commerce, Crafts and Services, which was responsible for 
preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 13 June 1984, 
in the light of the report by Mr Nierhaus. 
At its 218th plenary session (meeting of 4 July 1984) the Economic and Social Com­
mittee adopted the following opinion by a unanimous vote. 
I. Introduction 
The Commission document contains a Community-
wide development programme for cooperation in 
the automation of data and documentation for im­
ports/exports and management in agriculture 
(CADDIA) together with a proposal for a Council 
Decision aimed at ensuring that the Commission's 
and Member States' measures are coordinated. This 
document is in response to Council Decision 82/ 
607/EEC of 28 July 1982, which called for (a) an 
analysis of the needs, feasibility, costs and benefits 
of a development programme for the use of telema­
tics systems for the processing of data on imports/ 
exports and on the management and financial con­
trol of agricultural market organizations and (b) the 
submission of proposals for a long-term develop­
ment programme. 
The vast and complex development programme 
which the Commission has now presented was pre­
pared by a Preliminary Task Force (PTF) consisting 
of respresentatives of the Member States and the 
Commission's departments. II. Specific comments 
The Committee has the following comments to 
make: 
1. The Commission's plan, including its proposal 
for a Council Decision, meets with the Committee's 
approval. The systems in use at present for the col­
lection, processing and evaluation of data are still 
not fully coordinated and are in urgent need of a 
thorough overhaul. There are four reasons for this: 
— costs, 
— the Community authorities must be able to react 
swiftly and flexibly, especially where the organi­
zation of agricultural markets is concerned, 
— readily understandable economic data must be 
available for Community policy-making, 
— the proper documentation of quantitative and 
qualitative data is required for the exchange of 
information between the Community and its 
Member States. 
No C 248/18 Official Journal of the European Communities 17.9.84 
The many problems involved, only a very small 
number of which are related to the processing of the 
information, will make this a long drawn-out opera­
tion. The Committee thinks it is impossible to say in 
advance whether the work will be anywhere near 
completion seven years hence, let alone at the end of 
the planned 10-year period. Fully-fledged systems 
already serve and link the agricultural, customs and 
statistical sectors and this fact plus, above all, the 
different levels of development reached nationally 
with regard to data acquisition and transmission will 
make it difficult to work out general solutions. How­
ever, this does not mean that useful results should 
not be achieved as quickly as possible. 
2. The following tasks are considered by the Com­
mittee to be urgent: 
— the systematic continuation of the work on stan­
dard nomenclatures (especially TARIC II and 
HS for agricultural nomenclature), 
— the development and extension of Community-
wide transmission networks with standardized 
data acquisition and coding systems for on-line 
operation, 
— the building of uniform data banks so that the 
same data is not captured over and over again. 
Each of these tasks does, however, pose a whole host 
of problems of detail, which can only be solved step-
by-step if Member State administrations cooperate 
with each other and with the Community. Member 
States' existing plans and systems as well as the 
requirements laid down by them with regard to the 
requisite statistics will have to be taken into consi­
deration as far as posible in this context. 
Unfortunately there is no demarcation between this 
programme and concurrent or planned programmes 
in the field of data processing. 
3. An integrated data acquisition and processing 
system for imports/exports, agriculture and statis­
tics must satisfy the following requirements in par­
ticular in the eyes of the Committee: 
— administrative work must be simplified by ensur­
ing the once-only capture of the basic data which 
are to be evaluated and used for a variety of pur­
poses, 
Done at Brussels, 4 July 1984. — the outlay involved in the acquisition of the data 
must be reduced by building Community-wide 
on-line transmission networks, 
— the acquisition, transmission and processing of 
the data must be done flexibly in order to permit 
a smooth adjustment to new Community poli­
cies, 
— direct on-line access to the central data banks 
must be granted to national bodies, too, when 
the question of who is entitled to have access to 
these banks is decided, and at the same time full 
data protection must be provided by clearly spe­
cifying the degrees of confidentiality at national 
and Community level. 
4. The Comrriittee also agrees with the PTF's find­
ings and appeals to Member State administrations 
to lend their active support to the CADDIA project. 
Only in this way will it be possible to build a net­
work that satisfies the latest requirements for the 
automatic transmission and processing of data and 
documents. In the medium term is should be possi­
ble to streamline transactions between the relevant 
Member State and Community authorities in indivi­
dual sectors with a special view to simplifying the 
free movement of goods and services within the 
Community. 
5. The Committee would emphasize the need to 
implement the Commission's projects, thereby creat­
ing an inter-connected system of data banks and 
transmission networks which will reduce customs 
formalities at the Community's internal bordes to a 
minimum and will be of direct benefit to the man-
in-the-street in the Community. The Committee 
opinion of 24 February 1983 on the internal market 
(OJ No C 90, 5. 4. 1983) should be referred to here. 
6. The Committee is, however, aware that if any 
major improvements are to be made to customs 
operations within the Community, it will be neces­
sary for the Council to take fundamental political 
decisions which will lead to a simplification of the 
rules and regulations. Only the symptoms of an 
increasingly impenetrable mass of administrative 
paperwork might be cured by making improvements 
to the Community's and the Member States' infor­
mation technology networks. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Francois CEYRAC