No L 320/32 Official Journal of the European Communities 22. 12. 93 COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 3528/93 of 21 December 1993 amending Regulation (EEC) No 3813/92 on the unit of account and the conversion rates to be applied for the purposes of the common agricultural policy THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Articles 42 and 43 thereof, Having regard to the proposal from the Commission ('), Having regard to the opinion of the European Parli- ament (3, Whereas the agrimonetary arrangements applicable from 1 January 1993 are laid down by Regulation (EEC) No 3813/92 (%) ; whereas, on 2 August 1993, the Ministers for Financial Affairs and the Governors of the Central Banks decided temporarily to increase to 15 % the marginal intervention thresholds of currencies participa- ting in the exchange-rate mechanism of the European Monetary System ; whereas, from the agrimonetry point of view, therefore, all the currencies of the Member States must temporarily be considered to be floating currencies ; Whereas the new monetary situation creates a risk of wider and more frequent fluctuations than hitherto for all the agricultural conversion rates ; whereas uniform imple- menting measures applicable in all Member States must be adopted at Community level to ensure greater stabi- lity ; whereas, to that end, the four point limit on the monetary gap between Member States may be widened, although not beyond the five point level above which gaps give rise to speculative movements of goods; whereas, moreover, in ordeer to take account, in parti- cular, of the difficulties caused by currencies which revalue, the maximum monetary gap allowed for a parti- cular currency may be varied on the basis of the nature of the currency movement; Whereas Article 13 of Regulation (EEC) No 3813/92 restricts the application of the ecu correcting factor to 31 December 1994 and provides for a re-examination of the agrimonetary arrangements before that date ; whereas the measures amending the limits and rules for adjusting the agricultural conversion rates shoud be reviewed in that context ; Whereas Article 7 of Regulation (EEC) No 3813/92 lays down that, at the request of the Member State concerned, certain amounts in ecus can be increased to avoid their () OJ No C 298, 4. 11. 1993, p. 10. (%} Opinion delivered on 16 November 1993 (not yet published in the Official Journal). () OJ No L 387, 31. 12. 1992, p. 1. reduction in national currency ; whereas this is not econo- mically justified in the case of amounts which have previously been subject to an agrimonetary increase in national currency terms greater than the reduction in question ; : Whereas Article 8 of Regulation (EEC) 3813/92 provides for the possibility of granting compensatory aid for loss of income resulting form the average movement of the agri- cutural exchange rate over 12 months; whereas the payment of annual instalments of compensatory aid is no longer economically justified where movements in the national currency compensate for past losses of income, HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION : Article 1 Regulation (EEC) No 38313/92 is hereby amended as follows : 1. the following Article shall be inserted after Article 4 : Article 4a Until 31 December 1994, notwithstanding Article 4 : 1. the agricultural conversion rate for a floating curreny shall be adjusted wherethe mnetary gap for the last reference period of not more than a month exceeds : — three points where the gap is positive, or — two poins where the gap is negative. In such cases, the new agricultural conversion rate shall be fixed so as to reduce the monetary gp by half, without prejudice to paragraph 3, and shall take effect from the start of the following reference period ; 2. In the event of a monetary realignment affecting the central rates determined for the Member States with fixed currencies, the agricultural conversion rates shall be adjusted immediately so as to: — eliminate the monetary gaps for the fixed currencies, and : — reduce the monetary gaps for the floating currencies by half where they exceed the limits referred to in paragraph 1 over an appropriate reference period, without prejudice to paragraph 3.