Council Regulation (EEC) No 3904/89 of 15 December 1989 opening and providing for the administration of Community unilateral tariff quotas for coffee, not roasted and not decaffeinated, and for cocoa beans, whole or broken (1990)

COUNCIL  REGULATION (EEC) No 3904/89
of 15 December 1989
opening and providing for the administration of Community unilateral tariff quotas for coffee, not roasted and not decaffeinated, and for cocoa beans, whole or broken (1990)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular Article 28 thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,
Whereas, in accordance with the conclusions of the negotiations on the accession of Spain, and in order to take account of the traditional trade flows between that country and Latin America, the Community opened, for the first three years of the transitional period that is, until 31 December 1988 duty-free autonomous Community tariff quotas of 40 000 tonnes for coffee, not roasted and not decaffeinated and of 10 000 tonnes for cocoa beans, whole or broken; whereas, for the same reasons, these tariff measures were renewed for 1989, while taking into account, as in previous years, the special position of Spain; whereas, pending a definitive solution to the problem in the framework of the generalized system of preferences when it is revised for the ten-year period 1991 to 2000, it is recommended to renew the tariff measures in question for 1990, by slightly increasing the quotas to 48 000 tonnes and 12 000 tonnes respectively;
Whereas, in particular, equal and continuous access to the said quotas should be ensured for all importers, and the rate of duty for the tariff quotas should be applied consistently to all imports until the said quotas are used up; whereas, with the aim of warranting moreover the granting of the main benefit of these measures to Spain, the maintenance of a certain allocation of these quotas among Member States, seems necessary; whereas it is therefore appropriate to subdivide the quota amounts into two parts, the first one to be allocated from the outset to Spain, the second one to constitute a reserve from which the other Member States and where appropriate, Spain could draw the necessary quantities to cover their actual needs;
Whereas this method of management requires close cooperation between the Member States and the Commission, and requires the Commission in particular to be able to monitor the extent to which the quota volumes have been used up and inform the Member States accordingly;
Whereas if at a given date in the quota period a considerable quantity of Spain's initial share remains unused, it is essential that the Member State concerned should return any unused quantities in order to prevent part of the Community tariff quotas from remaining unused in one Member State when it could be used in others;
Whereas since the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg are united within and jointly represented by the Benelux Economic Union, any operation concerning the administration of these quotas may be carried out by any one of its members,