1. Expenditure relating to the payment of the Community withdrawal compensation and to Community financing of the operational fund, the specific measures referred to in Article 17 and Articles 53, 54 and 55 and checks by experts of the Member States made available to the Commission in application of Article 40(1) shall be deemed to be intervention to stabilise agricultural markets within the meaning of Article 1(2)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999(27).
2. Use of the operational fund to finance market withdrawals and/or the processing of citrus fruit shall be permissible only if an operational programme has been approved by the competent national authorities. Financing shall take one or more of the following forms:
(a) withdrawal compensation for products not listed in Annex II which comply with the standards in force if such standards have been laid down pursuant to Article 2;
(b) a supplement to the Community withdrawal compensation.
Member States may set a maximum level for the compensation or supplement but the amount of the supplement thus fixed added to the amount of the Community withdrawal compensation may not exceed the maximum level of withdrawal prices applying in the 1995/1996 marketing year in accordance with Article 16 (3) (a), Article 16 (a), Article 16 (b) and the first indent of Article 18 (1) (a) of Regulation (EEC) No 1035/72.
