Provided the third country concerned has given a legal undertaking to provide the assistance required to gather proof of the irregular nature of operations which appear to constitute breaches of customs or agricultural legislation or to determine the scope of operations which have been found to constitute breaches of that legislation, information obtained under this Regulation may be communicated to that third country as part of a concerted action, subject to the agreement of the competent authorities supplying the information, in accordance with their internal provisions concerning the communication of personal data to third countries.
The information shall be communicated either by the Commission or by the Member States as part of the concerted action referred to in the first paragraph; in either case appropriate steps shall be taken in the third country concerned to ensure a degree of protection equivalent to that laid down by Article 45 (1) and (2).
1. In pursuit of the objectives of this Regulation, the Commission may, under the conditions laid down in Article 19, conduct Community administrative and investigative cooperation missions in third countries in coordination and close cooperation with the competent authorities of the Member States.
2. The Community missions to third countries referred to in paragraph 1 shall be governed by the following conditions:
(a) they may be undertaken at the Commission's initiative, where appropriate on the basis of information supplied by the European Parliament, or at the request of one or more Member States;
(b) they shall be carried out by Commission officials appointed for that purpose and by officials appointed for that purpose by the Member State(s) concerned;
(c) they may also, by agreement with the Commission and the Member States concerned, be carried out on behalf of the Community by officials of a Member State, in particular under a bilateral assistance agreement with a third country; in that event the Commission shall be informed of the results of the mission;
(d) mission expenses shall be paid by the Commission.
3. The Commission shall inform the Member States and the European Parliament of the results of missions carried out pursuant to this Article.
1. The findings and information obtained in the course of the Community missions referred to in Article 20 of this Regulation, and in particular documents passed on by the competent authorities of the third countries concerned, shall be handled in accordance with Article 45 of this Regulation.
2. Article 12 shall apply mutatis mutandis to the findings and information referred to in paragraph 1.
3. For the purposes of their use pursuant to Article 12, original documents obtained or certified true copies thereof shall be forwarded by the Commission to the competent authorities of the Member States if they so request.
Member States shall notify the Commission of information exchanged within the framework of mutual administrative assistance with third countries wherever, within the meaning of Article 18 (1), it is particularly relevant to the effectiveness of customs or agricultural legislation pursuant to this Regulation and the information falls within the scope of this Regulation.
TITLE V
CUSTOMS INFORMATION SYSTEM
Chapter 1
Establishment of a Customs Information System
