Article 16a of Regulation (EU) No 36/2012 is replaced by the following:
‘Article 16a
1. The prohibitions set out in Article 14(1) and (2) shall not apply until 1 June 2025 to the making available of funds or economic resources necessary to ensure the timely delivery of humanitarian assistance or to support other activities that support basic human needs where such assistance and other activities are carried out by:
(a)
the United Nations, including its programmes, funds and other entities and bodies, as well as its specialised agencies and related organisations;
(b)
international organisations;
(c)
humanitarian organisations having observer status with the United Nations General Assembly and members of those humanitarian organisations;
(d)
bilaterally or multilaterally funded non-governmental organisations participating in United Nations Humanitarian Response Plans, United Nations Refugee Response Plans, other United Nations appeals or humanitarian clusters coordinated by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs;
(e)
organisations and agencies to which the Union has granted the Humanitarian Partnership Certificate or which are certified or recognised by a Member State in accordance with national procedures;
(f)
Member States’ specialised agencies; or
(g)
the employees, grantees, subsidiaries or implementing partners of the entities referred to in points (a) to (f) while and to the extent that they are acting in those capacities.
2. The prohibition set out in Article 14(2) shall not apply to funds or economic resources made available by public bodies or by legal persons, entities or bodies which receive public funding from the Union or Member States to provide humanitarian relief in Syria or assistance to the civilian population in Syria where the provision of such funds or economic resources is for the purchase or transport of petroleum products, or associated financing or financial assistance, for the sole purposes of providing humanitarian relief in Syria or to provide assistance to the civilian population in Syria in accordance with Article 6a(1).
3. In cases not covered by paragraphs 1 and 2 of this Article, and by way of derogation from Article 14(1) and (2), the competent authorities of the Member States may authorise the release of certain frozen funds or economic resources, or the making available of certain funds or economic resources, under such conditions as they deem appropriate, after having determined that the provision of such funds or economic resources is necessary to ensure the timely delivery of humanitarian assistance or to support other activities that support basic human needs.
4. In the absence of a negative decision, a request for information or a notification for additional time from the relevant competent authority within five working days of the date of receipt of a request for authorisation under paragraph 2, that authorisation shall be considered to be granted.
5. The Member State concerned shall inform the other Member States and the Commission of any authorisations granted under paragraph 3 and 4 within 4 weeks of such authorisation.’.