
Article 1 

1. Antimicrobials shall not be used as a specific method to control salmonella in breeding flocks of Gallus gallus in the framework of national control programmes adopted pursuant to Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 2160/2003, except in the circumstances established in paragraph 2.
2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, and subject to the conditions specified in points (a), (b) and (c) and in paragraph 3, antimicrobials authorised in accordance with Directive 2001/82/EC or Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 may be used in the following exceptional circumstances:
(a) animals presenting salmonella infection with clinical signs in a way likely to cause undue suffering to the animals; the infected breeding flocks treated with antimicrobials shall still be considered infected with salmonella, and appropriate measures shall be taken to reduce as much as possible the risk of spreading salmonella through the rest of the breeding pyramid;
(b) salvaging of valuable genetic material, including ‘elite flocks’, flocks from endangered breeds, and flocks kept for research purposes, in order to establish new salmonella-free flocks; chicks born from hatching eggs collected from treated animals shall be subject to fortnightly sampling during the rearing phase, with a scheme aiming to detect 1 % prevalence of relevant salmonella with a 95 % confidence limit;
(c) authorisation given by the competent authority on a case by case basis for purposes other than salmonella control in a flock suspect of salmonella infection, in particular following detection of salmonella at the hatchery or at the holding; however, Member States may decide to allow treatment without prior authorisation in emergency situations, subject to reporting the treatment immediately to the competent authority.
3. The use of antimicrobials shall be subject to authorisation and supervision of the competent authority and shall be based wherever possible on the results of bacteriological sampling and of susceptibility testing.
Article 2 
Live salmonella vaccines for which the manufacturer does not provide an appropriate method to distinguish bacteriologically wild-type strains of salmonella from vaccine strains shall not be used in the framework of national control programmes adopted pursuant to Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 2160/2003.
Article 3 
This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
It shall apply from 1 January 2007.
This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.Done at Brussels, 12 July 2005.
For the Commission
Markos KYPRIANOU
Member of the Commission