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1. The Member States shall inform the Commission of:

(a) all changes that have occurred in administrative units, in so far as they may affect the NUTS classification, as laid down in Annex I, or the contents of Annexes II and III;

(b) all other changes at the national level that may affect the NUTS classification, in accordance with the classification criteria laid down in Article 3.

2. Changes to NUTS level 3 boundaries due to changes of smaller administrative units as laid down in Annex III:

(a) shall not be considered as amendments of NUTS if they involve a population transfer equal to or less than one percent of the NUTS 3 territorial units concerned;

(b) shall be considered as amendments of NUTS, in accordance with paragraph 3 of this Article, if they involve a population transfer of more than one percent of the NUTS 3 territorial units concerned.

3. Amendments to the NUTS for the non-administrative units in a Member State, as referred to in Article 3(5), may be made if, at the NUTS level in question, the amendment reduces the standard deviation of the size in terms of population of all EU territorial units.

4. Amendments to the NUTS classification in Annex I shall be adopted in the second half of the calendar year, every three years at the earliest, on the basis of the criteria set out in Article 3. Nevertheless, if there is a substantial reorganisation of the relevant administrative structure of a Member State, such amendments to the NUTS classification may be adopted at shorter intervals. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 7a to amend the NUTS classification referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph on the basis of the changes in the territorial units that have been communicated to it by the Member State concerned in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article. Regional data which the Member States send to the Commission (Eurostat) shall be based on the amended NUTS classification starting from 1 January of the second year after the adoption of that delegated act.

5. In the event that the Commission adopts a delegated act as referred to in paragraph 4, the Member State concerned shall transmit to the Commission (Eurostat) the time series for the new regional breakdown, to replace data already transmitted. The Member State concerned shall transmit these time series by 1 January of the fourth year after the adoption of that delegated act. The Commission shall, by means of implementing acts, set out uniform conditions for time series and their length, taking into account the feasibility of providing them. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 7.