By agreement between the applicant authority and the requested authority, officials appointed by the applicant authority may be present at the administrative enquiries referred to in paragraph 1.

whereas provision should also be made for Commission representatives to be present, where justified, at national enquiries concerning mutual administrative assistance, and for their powers to be defined;

The requested authority shall at the request of the applicant authority carry out, or arrange to have carried out, the appropriate administrative enquiries concerning operations which constitute, or appear to the applicant authority to constitute, breaches of customs or agricultural legislation.

Whereas the Council should confer on the Office the task of undertaking within it administrative enquiries for the purpose of investigating serious situations which could constitute failure to comply with obligations imposed by Community law on persons who are Members of the Council and its bodies;

Each Contracting Party shall designate one or more enquiry points to which requests for information about the abovementioned laws, regulations, judicial decisions and administrative rulings may be addressed and shall communicate promptly such designation to the Secretariat which shall make it available on request.

Whereas it is appropriate to define the Member States' obligations under the mutual administrative assistance system in respect of cases in which representatives of the Member States' national administrations conduct enquiries concerning the application of customs or agricultural legislation with a mandate from, or under the authority of, the legal authorities;

In order to comply with a request for assistance, the requested customs authority, in cooperation with other administrative departments when the former cannot act on its own, shall proceed, within the limits of its competence and available resources, by supplying information already possessed, by carrying out appropriate enquiries or by arranging for them to be carried out.

In order to comply with a request for assistance, the requested authority or, when the latter cannot act on its own, the administrative department to which the request has been addressed by this authority, shall proceed, within the limits of its competence and available resources, as though it were acting on its own account or at the request of other authorities of that same Contracting Party, by supplying information already possessed, by carrying out appropriate enquiries or by arranging for them to be carried out.