Article 5

1. Without prejudice to Article 8, the Community investigation procedure shall be implemented before any safeguard measure is applied.

2. Using as a basis the factors described in Article 10, the investigation shall seek to determine whether imports of the product in question are causing or threatening to cause serious injury to the Community producers concerned.

3. The following definitions shall apply:

(a) 'serious injury' means a significant overall impairment in the position of Community producers,

(b) 'threat of serious injury' means serious injury that is clearly imminent;

? 'Community producers' means the producers as a whole of the like or directly competing products operating within the territory of the Community, or those whose collective output of the like or directly competing products constitutes a major proportion of the total Community production of those products.

Article 6

1. Where after consultations referred to in Article 3, it is apparent to the Commission that there is sufficient evidence to justify the initiation of an investigation, the Commission shall:

(a) initiate an investigation within one month of receipt of information from a Member State and publish a notice in the Official Journal of the European Communities; such notice shall give a summary of the information received, and stipulate that all relevant information is to be communicated to the Commission; it shall state the period within which interested parties may make known their views in writing and submit information, if such views and information are to be taken into account during the investigation; it shall also state the period within which interested parties may apply to be heard orally by the Commission in accordance with paragraph 4;

(b) commence the investigation, acting in cooperation with the Member States.

2. The Commission shall seek all information it deems to be necessary and, where it considers it appropriate, after consulting the Committee, endeavour to check this information with importers, traders, agents, producers, trade associations and organizations.

The Commission shall be assisted in this task by staff of the Member State on whose territory these checks are being carried out, provided that Member State so wishes.

Interested parties which have come forward pursuant to paragraph 1 (a) and representatives of the exporting country may, upon written request, inspect all information made available to the Commission in connection with the investigation other than internal documents prepared by the authorities of the Community or its Member States, provided that that information is relevant to the presentation of their case and not confidential within the meaning of Article 9 and that it is used by the Commission in the investigation.