As regards Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003, the Commission should be empowered to adopt measures concerning target secondary areas and individuals included in the initial sample and measures taking account of economic and technical changes. Since those measures are of general scope and are designed to amend non-essential elements of Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003, inter alia, by supplementing it with new non-essential elements, they must be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny provided for in Article 5a of Decision 1999/468/EC.

Accordingly, Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 is hereby amended as follows:

1. 1.

   Article 6(2) shall be replaced by the following:

   2.

   Target secondary areas shall be included every year starting from 2005 in the cross-sectional component only. One secondary area shall be covered each year. Measures defining such target areas, designed to amend non-essential elements of this Regulation, shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 14(3).

2. 2.

   Article 8(3) shall be replaced by the following:

   3.

   In the longitudinal component, individuals included in the initial sample, namely sample persons, shall be followed over the duration of the panel. Every sample person who has moved to a private household within the national boundaries shall be followed up to the new location in accordance with tracing rules and procedures to be defined by the Commission. Those measures, designed to amend non-essential elements of this Regulation by supplementing it, shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 14(3).

3. 3.

   Article 14(3) shall be replaced by the following:

   3.

   Where reference is made to this paragraph, Article 5a(1) to 4 and Article 7 of Decision 1999/468/EC shall apply, having regard to the provisions of Article 8 thereof.

4. 4.

   Article 15 shall be amended as follows:

   1. (a)

      in paragraph 1, the words ‘in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 14(2)’ shall be deleted;

   2. (b)

      the following paragraph shall be added:

      5.

      The measures referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2, designed to amend non-essential elements of this Regulation, inter alia, by supplementing it, shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 14(3) at least 12 months before the beginning of the year of the survey.