L 192/20 Official Journal of the European Union 19.7.2008 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 687/2008 of 18 July 2008 establishing procedures for the taking-over of cereals by intervention agencies or paying agencies and laying down methods of analysis for determining the quality of cereals (Codified version) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 of 22 October 2007 establishing a common organisation of agri- cultural markets and on specific provisions for certain agri- cultural products (Single CMO Regulation) ('), and in particular Article 43 in conjunction with Article 4 thereof, Whereas: Commission Regulation (EC) No 824/2000 of 19 April 2000 on establishing procedures for the taking-over of cereals by intervention agencies and laying down methods of analysis for determining the quality of cereals () has been substantially amended several times (). In the interests of clarity and rationality the said Regulation should be codified. The intervention price for common wheat, durum wheat, barley, maize and sorghum is fixed for qualities corre- sponding as far as possible to the average quality of the cereals harvested in the Community. In order to simplify the management of intervention operations and, in particular, to permit the establishment of homogeneous lots for each type of cereal offered to intervention, a minimum quantity, below which the paying agency or intervention agency is not obliged to accept the offer, should be fixed. However, it may be necessary to provide for a greater minimum tonnage in certain Member States, so that the agencies may take account of pre-existing conditions and practices of the wholesale trade in those countries. () O L 299, 16.11.2007, p. 1. Regulation as last amended by Commission Regulation (EC) No 510/2008 (O] L 149, 7.6.2008, p. 61). (3 OJ L 100, 20.4.2000, p. 31. Regulation as last amended by Regu- lation (EC) No 883/2007 (OJ L 195, 27.7.2007, p. 3). (%) See Annex IX. ) Methods of determining the quality of common wheat, durum wheat, barley, maize and sorghum must be defined. The second subparagraph of Article 11(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 limits the quantities of maize which may be bought in by the paying agencies or intervention agencies throughout the Community to a total of 700 000 tonnes in the 2008/2009 marketing year and 0 tonnes from the 2009/2010 marketing year onwards. To ensure the satisfactory management of the system for intervention buying-in of maize, and to give economic operators in all Member States access to the intervention system under equivalent conditions, detailed procedures should be laid down specific to the award of the quan- tities of maize eligible for intervention. To this end, a mechanism should be introduced for the award of those quantities, covering the periods of the marketing year in which operators may submit offers, giving them sufficient time to submit their offers and allowing a uniform award coefficient to be fixed for all offerers where the quantities offered exceed those available. Provision should therefore be made for the offers to be examined in two periods, and timetables should be laid down for the submission of offers for maize and for deliveries and the associated takeovers. Taking into account the periods for intervention buying- in laid down in the first subparagraph of Article 11(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007, and to ensure equivalent treatment of operators, provision should be made for a first period for the submission of offers for maize running from 1 August in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, from 1 December in Sweden and from 1 November in the other Member States, with 31 December as the last day for the submission of offers in all Member States. At the end of this first period the Commission will be obliged, where appropriate, to fix an award coefficient for the admissible offers submitted during this first period and to close the intervention for the remainder of the marketing year where the quan- tities offered exceed the quantity laid down in the second subparagraph of Article 11(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007. To avoid placing administrative and financial burdens on the paying agencies or intervention agencies and on operators, in particular by requiring securities to be lodged which could prove unnecessary in the absence of quantities to be awarded, provision should be made for a break in the submission of offers between 1 January and the date of publication in the Official Journal of the European Union of the quantity remaining available for intervention in the second period.