Considering that no evidence beyond anecdotal complaints about difficulties in price negotiations was provided and that apart from the five groups of complaining Union producers, 11 other producers of OCS operate in theUnion, among which some are very large, and that there is a variety of other import sources, these claims were rejected.

In practice, the main obstacle for the cross-border use of e-signatures lies in the lack of trust in e-signatures originating from other Member States, and difficulties linked to validating these signatures.

- are based on a comprehensive assessment of the situation in the Member State with respect to the targeted population and the challenges with respect to the operations envisaged (such as those related to obtaining travel documents and other practical obstacles to return).

This is due to difficulties related to: the different status or the definition of staff, the lack of comparable international statistics, the difference between gross and net income (which is very different from country to country because of heterogeneous tax and social security systems) and lastly the researcher's financial contribution to the scientific results obtained or the capacity to lead research contracts for which it is possible to negotiate individual benefits.

Whereas it is recognized that technical difficulties in potato breeding require expenditure of research activities for a long period in comparison with the overwhelming majority of all the other agricultural crops; whereas, in addition, experience on the market has shown that a new potato variety reveals its commercial value only in the long term in comparison with those agricultural species requiring also long-term research activities; whereas, for these reasons, an equitable refunding of the research activities is only possible at a fairly late stage of the protection in comparison with the other agricultural crops;

The Commission also underlines the difficulties linked to the range of subjects dealt with at ministerial conferences and the fact that the role of the Environment for Europe process has progressively decreased as other cooperation frameworks and initiatives have developed.