1.Sampling and analysis methods used in the context of official controls shall comply with relevant Community rules or,
if no such rules exist, with internationally recognised rules or protocols, for example those that the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) has accepted or those agreed in national legislation;
or,
in the absence of the above, with other methods fit for the intended purpose or developed in accordance with scientific protocols.
2.Where paragraph 1 does not apply, validation of methods of analysis may take place within a single laboratory according to an internationally accepted protocol.
3.Wherever possible, methods of analysis shall be characterised by the appropriate criteria set out in Annex III.
The following implementing measures may be taken by the Commission:
methods of sampling and analysis, including the confirmatory or reference methods to be used in the event of a dispute;
performance criteria, analysis parameters, measurement uncertainty and procedures for the validation of the methods referred to in (a);
and
rules on the interpretation of results.
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 62(4).
5.The competent authorities shall establish adequate procedures in order to guarantee the right of feed and food business operators whose products are subject to sampling and analysis to apply for a supplementary expert opinion, without prejudice to the obligation of competent authorities to take prompt action in case of emergency.
6.In particular, they shall ensure that feed and food business operators can obtain sufficient numbers of samples for a supplementary expert opinion, unless impossible in case of highly perishable products or very low quantity of available substrate.
7.Samples must be handled and labelled in such a way as to guarantee both their legal and analytical validity.