Article 71 — Continuity of production of crisis-relevant defence products

1. Where the Council activates the measure under this Article in accordance with Article 64(4) of this Regulation and where Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council applies to the relevant production activities, Member States may decide to use, or to encourage economic operators whose production sites are located on their territory and which produce the crisis-relevant defence products concerned to make use of, derogations provided for in Article 17(3) of Directive 2003/88/EC in order to allow for the expansion of working shifts thereby facilitating continuity of production of the crisis-relevant defence products concerned, if they deem it necessary to achieve the objectives of this Regulation. 2. Where prior authorisation is required, all national authorities concerned shall ensure that the most rapid treatment legally possible is given to applications from economic operators producing crisis-relevant defence product to use the derogations referred to in paragraph 1.