No L 310/48 Official Journal of the European Communities 3.12. %94 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 2944/94 of 2 December 1994 establishing rules for management and distribution with regard to textile quotas established for 1995 under Council Regulation (EC) No 517/94 THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 517/94 of 7 March 1994 relating to the common rules for imports of textile imports from certain third countries not covered by bilateral agreements, protocols or other arrangements, or by other specific Community import rules (*), as last amended by Regulation (EC) No 2798/94 (%), and in parti- cular Article 17 (3) and (6) and Article 21 (2) and (3) thereof, in relation with Article 25 (3) therof, Whereas the Council, by its Regulation (EC) No 517/94, established quantitative restrictions on imports of certain textile products originating in certain third countries and envisaged, in Article 17 (2), that these quotas will be allo- cated in the chronological reception order of the notifica- tions from the Member States according to the principle of first come, first served ; Whereas past experience has revealed that for certain quotas the established annual quantities were insufficient to cover the quantities subject to requests for import authorizations notified to the Member States ; that taking into account the foreseen accession on 1 January 1995 of new States to the European Union, there are serious reasons to believe that, for all the quotas established by the Regulation (EC) No 517/94 requests for import autho- rizations to be notified by the competent Member States authorities will exceed the quantitative limits established for 1995; Whereas Regulation (EC) No 517/94, Article 17 (3), stipu- lates that it is possible, in these circumstances, to make use of allocation methods which differ from the allocation method based exclusively on the chronological reception order of the notifications from Member States, as well as to envisage the division of the quotas in tranches; Whereas it is advisable, in order not to affect unduly the continuity of trade flows, to adopt before the start of the quota year, rules for management and distribution of the quotas fixed established for 1995 by Regulation (EC) No 517/94; (") OJ No L 67, 10. 3. 1994, p. 1. (® OJ No L 297, 18. 11. 1994, p. 6. Whereas it seems appropriate that those rules be deter- mined in taking into account the foreseen accession of new States to the European Union and the necessity to allow the importers of the States candidate to the Acces- sion to accede to Community quotas for 1995 in identical or similar conditions to those for the existing Community importers ; Whereas the Governments of Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden have undertaken on the one hand to adopt suitable measures to allow the participation of their opera- tors to the distribution of the existing Community quotas along the rules established under Regulation (EC) No 517/94 or as adopted in application of the said Regulation and on the other hand to cooperate fully to the manage- ment and distribution of the said quotas, by notifying to the Commission, like other Member States within the deadlines laid down, all the necessary elements concer- ning the requests for import authorizations addressed to them by the operators established on their respective territory ; Whereas to ensure a certain flexibility to the management and distribution of the quotas fixed by Regulation (EC) No 517/94, it seems appropriate to divide them in tran- ches and to envisage therefore that the first tranche repre- senting (75 %) of the amount of the annual quotas fixed by the said Regulation will be distributed, without preju- dice to the entry into force of the Accession Treaty, on the basis of the requests for import authorizations intro- duced to the competent authorities of the Member States and of the candidate countries to the Accession at latest on 9 December 1994 ; Whereas it seems appropriate, as far as the first tranche is concerned, to have a method of allocation which takes into account traditional trade flows in order to ensure a progressive transition towards the procedures introduced by Regulation (EC) No 517/94, and to this end it is appropriate to divide this quota into two parts, one reserved for traditional importers, the other for other applicants, and to fix the respective shares reserved for these different categories of operators at levels which, while taking into account traditional trade flows, will nevertheless ensure non-traditional importers significant access to the quotas created by Regulation (EC) No 517/94 and to define the concept of traditional importers while keeping in mind that 1993 cannot serve as a reference period due to certain distortions which charac- terized this period within the Community ;