17.9. 96 mEN Official Journal of the European Communities No L 235/39 COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 96/51/EC of 23 July 1996 amending Directive 70/524/EEC concerning additives in feedingstuffs THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 43 thereof, Having regard to the proposal from the Commission ('), Having regard to the opinion of the Parliament (*), European Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee (*), (1) Whereas application of Council  Directive 70/524/EEC of 23 November 1970 concerning additives in feedingstuffs(*) has shown that certain basic concepts must be revised to take account of the necd to ensure a greater degree of protection of animal and human health and of the environment; (2) Whereas experience has shown that the current rules on the use of additives in feedingstuffs do not provide all the necessary assurances as to safety, particularly because of the circulation in the Community of poor copies of zootechnical additives; whereas it is therefore essential to link the authorization of such additives to the person responsible for putting the additive authorized by the Community into circulation; (3) Whereas a distinction should be made between additives which are widely used and present no particular  dangers for the manufacture of feedingstuffs and high technology additives with a very specific composition for which the person responsible for putting them into circulation must receive authorization, in order to avoid copies which might not be in conformity and might therefore be unsafe; (4) Whereas there should be drawn up in the form of an Annex to this Directive, first a list of additives for which authorization to put them into circulation is granted to persons responsible who ] No C 218, 12. 8. 1993, p. 1. ] No C 128, 9. 5. 1994, p. 97. ] No C 52, 19. 2. 1994, p. 18. J No L 270, 14. 2. 1970, p. 1. Directive as last amended by irective 92/25/EC (O] No L 125, 23. 5. 1996, p. 35). cCoooLl alone are entitled to put the additives in question into circulation, second, a list of other additives which may be put into circulation by any person provided . that they are additives which meet the specifications in the dossiers on the basis of which they have been authorized; Whereas, to facilitate application of Directive 70/524/FEC, the list of definitions should be supplemented and certain definitions should be amended; whereas, in particular, the concept of additives should be defined so as also to take account of their possible effects on feed materials, animal  products, animal welfare or the environment; whereas processing aids should be excluded from the scope of this Directive insofar as these substances are used in the processing of feed materials or of feedingstuffs and no longer have any effect in the finished product; © Whereas micro-organisms authorized as such in group 0 for improving animal production and in particular influencing gastro-intestinal flora must form colonies; Whereas, where in particular vitamins, trace elements or colouring matter are present in certain raw materials in their natural state, they must not be considered as additives unless products specially enriched with such a substance corresponding to an additive are concerned which cannot therefore be considered as ‘raw materials naturally containing the substances concerned; Whereas the premixtures referred to in this Directive may under no circumstances be regarded as preparations covered by the definition of additive; Whereas experience  has shown that the authorization of additives by means of directives causes considerable delays; whereas such delays in the transposition of directives have sometimes resulted in distortions of competition and even created barriers to trade; whereas, to remedy this situation, additives should be authorized by means of regulations; Whereas fees may be charged for the examination of dossiers by the Member State acting as rapporteur; whereas the levels of such fees should be harmonized in order to obviate distortion of