No L 36/38 Official Journal of the European Communities 14. 2. 96 COMMISSION DECISION of 31 January 1996 authorizing the Member States to provide for derogations from certain provisions of Council Directive 77/93/EEC in respect of potatoes for human consumption originating in Cuba (96/157/EC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Council Directive 77/93/EEC of 21 December 1976 on protective measures against the intro- duction into the Community of organisms harmful to plants or plant products and against their spread within the Community (), as last amended by Commission Directive 95/66/EC (%), and in particular Article 14 (1) thereof, Having regard to the request made by Germany and the Netherlands, Whereas, under the provisions of Directive 77/93/EEC, potato tubers other than those officially certified as seed potatoes pursuant to other Community provisions, origi- nating in Cuba may in principle not be introduced into the Community because of the risk of introducing exotic potato diseases unknown in the Community; Whereas the early growing in Cuba of potatoes for human consumption from seed potatoes supplied by Member States has become an established practice ; whereas part of the early supply of potatoes for human consumption in the Community has been ensured by imports of such material from Cuba; Whereas by Decisions 87/306/EEC (°), 88/223/EEC (%), 89/152/EEC (), 91/593/EEC(%), 93/36/EEC() and 95/96/EC (}), the Commission authorized derogations under special technical conditions in respect of potatoes for human consumption originating in Cuba, in the 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994 seasons; Whereas there have never been confirmed findings of diseases and pests on samples drawn from imports pursuant to the said Decisions ; () OJ No L 26, 31. 1. 1977, p. 20. () O No L 308, 21. 12. 1995, p. 77. () OJ No L 153, 13. 6. 1987, p. 41. {) OJ No L 100, 19. 4. 1988, p. 44. (9 OJ No L 59, 2. 3. 1989, p. 29. () O] No L 316, 16. 11. 1991, p. 47. ") O] No L 16, 25. 1. 1993, p. 40. (* OF No L 75, 4. 4. 1995, p. 22. Whereas the circumstances justifying the authorization still obtain ; Whereas the measures provided for in this Decision are in accordance with the opinion of the Standing Committee on Plant Health, HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION : Article 1 1. The Member States are hereby authorized to provide, under the conditions laid down in paragraph 2, for excep- tions to Article 4 (1) with regard to the prohibitions referred to in Part A, point 12 of Annex III to Directive 77/93/EEC, for potatoes for human consumption origina- ting in Cuba. 2. The following specific conditions shall be satisfied : (a) the potatoes shall be potatoes for human consump- tion ; (b) they shall either be immature potatoes, i.e. ‘unsube- rized’ potatoes with loose skin, or they shall have been treated for the suppression of their faculty of germination ; (c) they shall have been grown in the province ‘Pinar del Rio’ in areas where Pseudomonas solanacearum (Smith) Smith is not known to occur; (d) they shall belong to varieties the seed potatoes of which were imported into Cuba only from Member States ; (e) they shall be the direct progeny of either seed pota- toes officially certified in the previous year as ‘basic seed’ or ‘certified seed’ in Member States having supplied Cuba, or of the progeny of such seed pota- toes, officially certified in the year before the previous one, if this progeny was produced in the province ‘Pinar del Rio’ and qualified as seed potatoes in accordance with the current rules applicable in Cuba ; (f) they shall have been grown either on farms which have not grown potatoes of varieties other than those specified in (d) over the previous five years, or, in the case of State farms, on land sections which are kept separate from other land where potatoes of varieties other than those specified in (d) have been grown over the last five years;