L 163/24 Official Journal of the European Union 24.6.2008 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 590/2008 of 23 June 2008 amending Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 laying down implementing rules of Council Regulations (EC) No 2200/96, (EC) No 2201/96 and (EC) No 1182/2007 in the fruit and vegetable sector and derogating from that Regulation THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 1182/2007 of 26 September 2007 laying down specific rules as regards the fruit and vegetable sector, amending Directives 2001/112/EC and 2001/113/EC and Regulations (EEC) No 827/68, (EC) No 2200/96, (EC) No 2201/96, (EC) No 2826/2000, (EC) No 1782/2003 and (EC) No 318/2006 and repealing Regulation (EC) No 2202/96 (1), and in particular Article 42(b), (f) and (j), Whereas: Article 11 of Regulation (EC) No 1182/2007 provides that national financial assistance may be granted in regions where the degree of organisation of producers is particularly low. This assistance should be additional to the operational fund. In order to permit a producer organisation to include the additional support in its operational programme, the operational programme should be amended if necessary. In this case Member States should be able to increase the percentage limit set in Article 67(2)(c) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 (3) by which the amount of the opera- tional fund initially approved can be increased. Article 82(2)(d) of Regulation (EC) No 15802007 provides that payment for transport costs for free distri- bution shall be subject to the presentation of documents certifying the transport costs actually incurred. However, the transport costs related to free distribution are financed by flat-rate amounts set in Annex XI to that Regulation, so there is no need for such information, but instead information should be required on the distance which is used as a basis for the calculation of the flat-rate amount. It is appropriate to change the date set in Article 94(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 by which Member States shall submit a request to the Commission for authorisa- tion to grant national financial assistance to producer organisations to 31 January, in order to take into account the existing possibility for Member States to () OJ L 273, 17.10.2007, p. 1. () OJ L 350, 31.12.2007, p. 1. Regulation as last amended by Regu- lation (EC) No 498/2008 (O] L 146, 5.6.2008, p. 7). ) postpone the approval of operational programmes and funds until 20 January. Article 97(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 estab- lishes that Member States should request Community reimbursement of approved national financial assistance actually paid to producer organisations before 1 March of the year following the yearly implementation of the operational programmes. Since Member States pay the producer organisations by 15 October of the year following the year of implementation of the programme, the deadline for Member States to request reimbursement from the Commission, should therefore be extended to 1 January of the second year following the year of implementation of the programme. The fourth subparagraph of Article 116(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1580/2007 provides that Member States may make payments after the deadline set out in Article 71 of that Regulation where this is necessary. However, a final deadline should be set for such payments for reasons of good financial management. A similar set of provisions should also be added to Article 116(3) of that Regulation for the same reasons. Point (b) of the first paragraph of Article 122 of Regu- lation (EC) No 1580/2007 requires that producer orga- nisations be required to reimburse the Community contribution where recipients of products withdrawn from the market are obliged to repay the value of the products they received plus the related sorting, packaging and transport costs due to irregularities. However, producer organisations should not be made responsible for irregularities attributable to the recipients of withdrawn products and therefore this requirement should be removed. In order to ensure legal certainty and equality between Member States, it should be made clear that for opera- tional programmes implemented in 2007 provisions identical to those contained in Commission Regulation (EC) No 544/2001 of 20 March 2001 laying down rules for the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 as regards additional financial assistance to operational funds (}) should continue to apply. () O] L 81, 21.3.2001, p. 20.