21.6.2011 Official Journal of the European Union L 16129 COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING DECISION of 17 June 2011 amending Decision 2009/719/EC authorising certain Member States to revise their annual BSE monitoring programmes (notified under document C(2011) 4194) (Text with EEA relevance) (2011/358/EU) THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Having regard to Regulation (EC) No 999/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 laying down rules for the prevention, control and eradication of certain transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (1), and in particular the second subparagraph of Article 6(1b) thereof, Whereas: 1 ) 0] 0] Regulation (EC) No 999/2001 lays down rules for the prevention, control and eradication of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) in animals. It requires each Member State to carry out an annual moni- toring programme for TSEs in accordance with Annex III to that Regulation. Regulation (EC) No 999/2001 provides that the annual monitoring programmes are to cover as a minimum certain subpopulations of bovine animals referred to in Article 6 thereof. Those subpopulations are to include all bovine animals above 24 or 30 months of age, the age limit depending on the categories listed in points 2.1, 2.2 and 3.1 of Part I of Chapter A of Annex III to that Regulation. The Annex to Commission Decision 2009/719/EC of 28 September 2009 authorising certain Member States to revise their annual BSE monitoring programmes (?) lists 17 Member States authorised to revise their annual monitoring programme in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 999/2001. That list includes all the Member States that were Members of the Union before 1 May 2004, as well as Slovenia and Cyprus. On 9 December 2010, the Panel on Biological Hazards (Biohaz) of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) adopted a scientific opinion on a second update on the risk for human and animal health related to the revision L 147, 31.5.2001, p. 1. L 256, 29.9.2009, p. 35. of the BSE monitoring regime in some Member States (*) (the EFSA opinion of 9 December 2010). For the EFSA opinion of 9 December 2010, the Biohaz was asked to analyse the data available for the 17 Member States listed in Decision 2009/719/EC and eight other Member States. The Biohaz assumed that all 25 Member States had implemented for at least six years a BSE surveillance system and control measures, as provided for in Regu- lation (EC) No 999/2001. The EFSA opinion of 9 December 2010 confirms that the BSE epidemic has been declining in the 17 Member States listed in Decision 2009/719/EC. The EFSA opinion of 9 December 2010 also concludes that if the age limit for BSE testing would be raised to 72 months in healthy slaughtered cattle, less than one classical BSE case could be expected to be missed in 2011. In addition, it concludes that if BSE testing for healthy slaughtered cattle would stop as from 1 January 2013, less than one classical BSE case would be missed each calendar year from 2013 onwards. It can be inferred from that findings that the risk for human and animal health would be negligible if the current BSE testing is adapted accordingly. Taking into account the conclusions of the EFSA opinion of 9 December 2010, the ages of the categories of bovine animals should be increased for animals covered by the revised annual monitoring programmes of the Member States listed in the Annex to Decision 2009/719/EC. Therefore, Member States that have been authorised to revise their annual monitoring programmes should be given the option to apply alternative but equally effective sampling plans while adapting to the epidemi- ological situation from 1 January 2013 onwards. Regarding the eight Member States not listed in Decision 2009/719[EC, the EFSA opinion of 9 December 2010 concludes that the classical BSE epidemiological situation is different for a group of five Member States comprised of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Malta and another group comprised of three Member States, namely the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. In the group of five Member States, no BSE cases have been detected since full implementation of the Union surveillance system on 1 May 2004, and the classical BSE epidemiological situation should be considered to be ‘at least equivalent’ to that of the 17 Member States (}) EFSA Journal 2010;8(12):1946.