Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2021)115 - Implementation of the Kimberley Process certification scheme for the international trade in rough diamonds (recast)

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dossier COM(2021)115 - Implementation of the Kimberley Process certification scheme for the international trade in rough diamonds (recast).
source COM(2021)115 EN
date 12-03-2021


1. In the context of a people’s Europe, the Commission attaches great importance to simplifying and clarifying the law of the Union so as to make it clearer and more accessible to citizens, thus giving them new opportunities and the chance to make use of the specific rights it gives them.

This aim cannot be achieved so long as numerous provisions that have been amended several times, often quite substantially, remain scattered, so that they must be sought partly in the original instrument and partly in later amending ones. Considerable research work, comparing many different instruments, is thus needed to identify the current rules.

For this reason a codification of rules that have frequently been amended is also essential if the law is to be clear and transparent.

2. On 1 April 1987 the Commission decided 1 to instruct its staff that all acts should be codified after no more than ten amendments, stressing that this is a minimum requirement and that departments should endeavour to codify at even shorter intervals the texts for which they are responsible, to ensure that their provisions are clear and readily understandable.

3. The Conclusions of the Presidency of the Edinburgh European Council (December 1992) confirmed this 2 , stressing the importance of codification as it offers certainty as to the law applicable to a given matter at a given time.

Codification must be undertaken in full compliance with the normal procedure for the adoption of acts of the Union.

4. The purpose of this proposal is to undertake a codification of Council Regulation (EC) No 2368/2002 of 20 December 2002 implementing the Kimberley Process certification scheme for the international trade in rough diamonds 3 . The new Regulation will supersede the various acts incorporated in it 4 , fully preserving the content of the acts being codified. At the same time, it is also necessary to make a substantive amendment to Article 22 of that Regulation. Therefore, the proposal is being presented in the form of a recast.

5. The recast proposal was drawn up on the basis of a preliminary consolidation, in 24 official languages, of Regulation (EC) No 2368/2002 and the instruments amending it, carried out by the Publications Office of the European Union, by means of a data-processing system. Where the Articles have been given new numbers, the correlation between the old and the new numbers is shown in a table set out in Annex VII to the recast Regulation.


 2368/2002 (adapted)