Securities
Article 66
1. The Member States shall, when the sectoral agricultural legislation so provides, request the lodging of a security giving the assurance that a sum of money will be paid or forfeited to a competent authority if a particular obligation under sectoral agricultural legislation is not fulfilled. 2. Except in cases of force majeure, the security shall be forfeited in whole or in part where the execution of a particular obligation is not carried out, or is carried out only partially. 3. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 115 laying down rules which ensure a non discriminatory treatment, equity and the respect of proportionality when lodging a security, and: (a) specifying the responsible party in the event that an obligation is not met; (b) laying down the specific situations in which the competent authority may waive the requirement of a security; (c) laying down the conditions applying to the security to be lodged and the guarantor and the conditions for lodging and releasing that security; (d) laying down the specific conditions related to the security lodged in connection with advance payments; (e) setting out the consequences of breaching the obligations for which a security has been lodged, as provided for in paragraph 1, including the forfeiting of securities, the rate of reduction to be applied on release of securities for refunds, licences, offers, tenders or specific applications and when an obligation covered by that security has not been met either wholly or in part, taking into account the nature of the obligation, the quantity for which the obligation has been breached, the period exceeding the time limit by which the obligation should have been met and the time by which evidence that the obligation has been met is produced. 4. The Commission may adopt implementing acts laying down rules on: (a) the form of the security to be lodged and the procedure for lodging the security, for accepting it, and for replacing the original security; (b) the procedures for the release of a security; (c) the notifications to be made by Member States and by the Commission. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 116(3).