The Council adopted, by qualified majority, a common position on the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation 999/2001/EC laying down rules for the prevention, control and eradication of certain transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
In May 2006, an agreement was made at first reading on this report. In the meantime, the Council adopted Decision 2006/512/EC which introduced new provisions for the adoption of acts implementing Council and Parliament's legislation adopted via co-decision, the so-called "regulatory procedure with scrutiny", governed by the provisions laid down in the new Article 5a of Council Decision 1999/468/EC. This new procedure should be used for measures of a general scope which seek to amend non-essential elements of an adopted act according to the codecision procedure, including by deleting some of those elements or by supplementing the instrument by the addition of new non-essential elements.
Awaiting the adoption of the co-decision proposal on TSEs, the Council made the necessary changes to include, where appropriate, the regulatory procedure with scrutiny in the Articles referred in the Commission proposal.
Given the urgency of the matter, the Parliament and the Council should adopt the proposed Regulation no later than December 2006.