24.9.2008 Official Journal of the European Union L 256/5 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 933/2008 of 23 September 2008 amending the Annex to Council Regulation (EC) No 21/2004 as regards the means of identification of animals and the content of the movement documents (Text with EEA relevance) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 21/2004 of 17 December 2003 establishing a system for the identification and registration of ovine and caprine animals and amending Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 and Directives 92/102/EEC and 64/432[EEC ('), and in particular Article 10(1) thereof, Whereas: (1) Regulation (EC) No 21/2004 provides that each Member State is to establish a system for the identification and registration of ovine and caprine animals in accordance with the provisions of that Regulation. (2)  That system is to comprise four elements, namely: means of identification to identify each animal (means of iden- tification), up-to-date registers kept on each holding, movement documents and a central register or a computer database. The Annex to that Regulation sets out the requirements for those elements. (3)  Regulation (EC) No 21/2004, as amended by Regulation (EC) No 1560/2007 (%), provides that electronic identifi- cation is to be obligatory as from 31 December 2009. (4 On 17 November 2007, the Commission submitted a report to the Council on the implementation of elec- tronic identification in sheep and goats (}). That report concludes that Member States should also be allowed to approve new types of identifiers to identify sheep and goats under certain conditions. (5)  Technological developments have taken place in the field of electronic identification. It is therefore appropriate to () O] L 5, 9.1.2004, p. 8. () O] L 340, 22.12.2007, p. 25. () COM(2007) 711. amend the requirements concerning the means of identi- fication, set out in Regulation (EC) No 21/2004, in order to allow a broader spectrum of technical combinations. The newly developed means of identification, such as injectable identifiers and electronic marks on the pastern, should accordingly be permitted as means of identification pursuant to that Regulation. However, their use should be limited to national movements, taking into account the need to gain further practical experience of using those new means of identification. As electronic identification will become the first means of identification Member States should be allowed more flexibility in using conventional means of identification as a second identifier. Part A of the Annex to that Regu- lation should therefore be amended accordingly. Part B of the Annex to Regulation (EC) No 21/2004 sets out the information which should be contained in the up-to-date registers kept on each holding. Part of that information is available only at the holding of birth. In the interest of reducing the administrative burdens, it is therefore appropriate to amend that part of the Annex. Regulation (EC) No 21/2004 provides that, as from 31 December 2009, electronic identification is to be obligatory for all animals born after that date. However, during the first year after 31 December 2009, the majority of animals will only be identified with conventional non-electronic identifiers, since those animals are born before that date. During that year animals with electronic and non-electronic identifiers will be moved and handled together. The individual animal codes from non-electronic iden- tifiers can only be recorded manually. Manual recording of non-electronic identifiers requires considerable effort on the part of keepers and constitutes a potential source of errors. In addition, it would be burdensome for operators to separate the few animals with electronic identifiers and to record their individual codes. Also, it would be burdensome to request that electronic reading systems are installed for individual recording, as the majority of animals moved would still be identified with conventional non-electronic eartags. Therefore, the date from which the movement document is to contain individual animal codes should be postponed until such time as a substantial part of the sheep and goats popu- lation has already been identified by electronic means. The Commission’s report on the implementation of elec- tronic identification in sheep and goats also reached that conclusion.