Article 5
Amendments to NUTS 1. The Member States shall inform the Commission of: (a) all changes that have occurred in administrative units, in so far as they may affect the NUTS classification, as laid down in Annex I, or the contents of Annexes II and III; (b) all other changes at the national level that may affect the NUTS classification, in accordance with the classification criteria laid down in Article 3. 2. Changes to NUTS level 3 boundaries due to changes of smaller administrative units as laid down in Annex III: (a) shall not be considered as amendments of NUTS if they involve a population transfer equal to or less than one percent of the NUTS 3 territorial units concerned; (b) shall be considered as amendments of NUTS, in accordance with paragraph 3 of this Article, if they involve a population transfer of more than one percent of the NUTS 3 territorial units concerned. 3. Amendments to the NUTS for the non-administrative units in a Member State, as referred to in Article 3(5), may be made if, at the NUTS level in question, the amendment reduces the standard deviation of the size in terms of population of all EU territorial units. 4. Amendments to the NUTS classification shall be adopted in the second half of the calendar year in accordance with the regulatory procedure referred to in Article 7(2), not more frequently than every three years, on the basis of the criteria laid down in Article 3. Nevertheless, in the case of a substantial reorganisation of the relevant administrative structure of a Member State, the amendments to the NUTS classification may be adopted at intervals of less than three years. The Commission implementing measures referred to in the first subparagraph shall enter into force, with regard to the transmission of the data to the Commission, on 1 January of the second year after their adoption. 5. When an amendment is made to the NUTS classification, the Member State concerned shall transmit to the Commission the time series for the new regional breakdown, to replace data already transmitted. The list of the time series and their length will be specified in accordance with the regulatory procedure referred to in Article 7(2) taking into account the feasibility of providing them. These time series are to be supplied within two years of the amendment to the NUTS classification.