EU Quality Regulations Implementation Act.

The Act provides for implementation of the EU Regulations in the fields of organic production, protected indications of origin and traditional specialties. Feed, fertilisers, plant protection products, seeds and planting stock and other propagating material as well as wine that are designated as "organic" or contain an indication of their suitability for organic production or advertised in this way in commercial transactions or made available to third parties must comply with the general legal requirements. The Act provides for authority of government as the responsible body for official controls, approval, prohibition or registration procedures for implementation of regulations and compliance of product specifications. The inspections are conducted by the government control bodies who can be accompanied by the other authorities supervisory body while a report must be drawn up for each test process. The Federal Office for Consumer Health carries out the official control of biological shipments entering the European Union via Austrian territory. The government must conduct a compliance check of the EU regulations with regard to selling unpackaged organic food directly to end consumers.
At the Federal Ministry of Health a control committee is set up that is in charge of development and approval of guidelines and manuals, elaboration and approval of control plans, coordination of the authorities when approving inspection bodies, clarification of questions of interpretation in connection with the control and exchange of information on the implementation of ongoing controls. Risk assessments and statistical data are considered in the official control plan by the government. The text further provides for powers and obligations of the control bodies including exchange of information, reporting of irregularities and violations, cooperation for audits processing, cooperation in the case of entrepreneur changing control bodies. Article 8 refers to the entrepreneur obligations for registered products under the EU Regulations, record keeping, cooperation with the official control and supervisory bodies and giving the necessary information, in particular about the production, processing, distribution, storage, import, origin and buyers of products and about all units of the company, including means of transport, the production, processing and marketing of products to the governmental authorities.
Article 9 refers to ordinance requirements for the protection of consumers from deception. The Act further provides for exchange of information, application and procedure fees. An Advisory Board shall be set up for plant production, animal production, processing and control. For each protected designation of origin or protected geographical indication a supporting association should be formed that meets the requirements mentioned in Article 15. An advisory board for protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications will be set up at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management. Members of the Board shall be representatives of different governmental authorities as is mentioned in Article 16. The text further provides for administrative penal provisions. The Act consists of 22 Articles.