Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 926/2011 of 12 September 2011 for the purposes of Council Decision 2009/470/EC as regards Union financial aid to the EU reference laboratories for feed and food and the animal health sector lays down rules as regards the arrangements for the granting of Union financial aid for the activities of EU reference laboratories, including for the organisation of workshops and the conditions according to which that aid is granted.

In order to limit the administrative burden for EU reference laboratories and the Commission, the organisation of workshops should be subject to the same rules as other activities of those laboratories. The submission by those laboratories of specific financial and technical reports on workshops should therefore no longer be required. Accordingly, the Commission should no longer be required to make specific payments following the submission and approval of those reports.

Implementing Regulation (EU) No 926/2011 should therefore be amended accordingly.

As the amendments to Implementing Regulation (EU) No 926/2011, introduced by this Regulation, will have no negative impact for the EU reference laboratories, this Regulation should apply retroactively from 1 January 2013. This retroactivity is necessary in order to ensure an equal treatment between EU reference laboratories in cases where workshops have been organised before the date of entry into force of this Regulation.

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health,