It should be made clear that the proposal aims to provide flexibility to Member States in line with the subsidiarity principle to choose the most appropriate mechanisms for holding oil stocks, but at the same time to ensure a system, which is effective and reliable in case of supply disruption not yet experienced.

A number of experts heard at the hearing organised by the ITRE-committee recommended to stick to the principles established by the current Directives on security of oil supply improving some of their coordination mechanisms instead of establishing a Community system for the oil stocks held by the Member States.

The Commission manages the central stocks and supplies the "Europass Training" documents to NCPs at their request, and to them only, as agreed in the co-operation charter (cf. 2.1.1 above).

(15) Whereas oil stocks can, in principle, be held anywhere in the Community and, therefore, it is appropriate to facilitate the establishment of stocks outside national territory; whereas it is necessary that decisions for holding stocks outside national territory are taken by the Government of the Member State concerned according to its needs and supply security considerations; whereas in the case of stocks held at the disposal of another undertaking, or body/entity, more detailed rules are needed to guarantee their availability and accessibility in the event of oil supply difficulties;

As decided by the Justice and Home Affairs Council of 5-6 June 2003 and described in Article 1(2) of the June 2004 Council decision mentioned above, the VIS will be based on a centralised architecture comprising a database where the visa application files will be stored: the Central Visa Information System (CS-VIS), and a National Interface (NI-VIS) located in the Member States.

Whereas Article 2 (2) of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3680/91 of 17 December 1991 on the sale for delivery in the Azores and Madeira of cereals held by the intervention agencies (3), as amended by Regulation (EEC) No 308/92 (4), explicitly states that each of the islands in the archipelago in which there are either milling facilities or feedingstuffs factories should be supplied; whereas the experience acquired shows that supply of maize to these islands should equally be foreseen to the detriment of the foreseen supply in other cereals; whereas the Portuguese intervention Agency no longer withholds stocks for this supply; whereas, ...[+++]as a consequence of the procedural delay, a longer than foreseen delay should be introduced for May 1992; whereas Regulation (EEC) No 3680/91 should therefore be amended;