7 EU and Azerbaijan
| (a)
(35668)
17917/13
COM(13) 865
(b)
(35669)
17920/13
+ ADD 1 REV 1
COM(13) 868
|
Draft Council Decision on the signing and provisional application, on behalf of the Union, of a Protocol to the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, on a Framework Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Azerbaijan, on the general principles for the participation of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Union programmes
Draft Council Decision on the conclusion of a Protocol to the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, on a Framework Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Azerbaijan on the general principles for the participation of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Union programmes
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| Legal base
| (a) Article 212, in conjunction with Article 218(5) TFEU; QMV
(b) Article 212, in conjunction with Article 218(6)(a) TFEU; EP consent; QMV
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| Department
| Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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| Basis of consideration
| Minister's letter of 27 February 2014
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| Previous Committee Report
| HC 83-xxxiii (2013-14) chapter 7, (12 February 2014)
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| Discussion in Council
| To be determined
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| Committee's assessment
| Legally and politically important
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| Committee's decision
| Not cleared; further information requested
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Background and previous scrutiny
7.1 The background to these two Council
Decisions on the signing and conclusion of a Framework Agreement
with Azerbaijan, a brief account of their scope and the Government's
initial view are set out in our Thirty-sixth Report.[14]
7.2 In the conclusions to that Report,
we thanked the Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington) for clarifying
that the same question of the Commission's choice of legal base
applied to the Council Decisions relating to this Agreement as
it had to the Framework Agreement for Kosovo and Georgia. Specifically,
that the Decisions cited a single legal base (Article 212 TFEU)
rather than all the substantive legal bases of the EU programmes
covered in the Framework Agreement as had been the practice previously.
7.3 According to the Government, those
legal bases would not include an Article 352 TFEU legal base (with
the scope of the EU Act 2011) but also those in respect of programmes
containing JHA obligations (Fiscalis 2020 and Customs 2020) and
would therefore trigger the opt-in Protocol. We also noted in
our conclusions that the Government intended to pursue its policy
of asserting the application of the opt-in Protocol to the Council
Decisions, in the absence of the citation of a Title V legal base.
We repeated our view, known to the Government, that the opt-in
Protocol did not apply in those circumstances.
7.4 We asked the Minister to keep us
informed of progress in securing a change of legal base and to
respond to an outstanding letter on the EU-Kosovo Framework Agreement.
Minister's Letter of 27 February 2014
7.5 In his letter, the Minister says
that:
· the Government has persisted
in making clear its opposition to the Article 212 TFEU legal base;
· discussions have commenced
in the Working Party of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (COEST);
· as with the Georgia and Kosovo
Framework Agreements, the Commission continues to argue that there
is no need to cite all the individual legal bases of the EU programmes
involved where they provide for their extension to a third country;
· the Government is continuing
to press the Commission for a complete and precise list of all
the programmes that Azerbaijan will be able to participate
in which it says it needs in order to assess which legal bases
need to be cited in the current documents;
· the Commission is unwilling
to provide this list and instead asserts that a "generic
list should suffice given each European Neighbourhood Policy country
would need its own agreement in order to participate in a programme";
· he apologises for not informing
the Committee earlier that, due to a misunderstanding between
EEAS and FCO officials, the publication of the final language
version of the two Council Decisions on 7 February was overlooked;
· this means, according
to the Government (and consistent with the approach taken by the
Government on the Georgia Agreement), that the eight week period
for the Committee to opine on the opt-in has already begun and
will expire on 4 April;
· the UK continues to
push adoption of these Decisions to be delayed in order to allow
national parliaments sufficient time to consider the question
of the opt-in, but this will ultimately be beyond the Government's
control as the Decisions are to be adopted by QMV
7.6 The Minister concludes his letter
by saying that he will keep us informed of progress in the negotiations.
Conclusion
7.7 We thank the Minister for this
update. We note the Government's view that the process for enhanced
parliamentary scrutiny has already commenced and expires on 4
April. We will not be expressing any opinion on this purported
opt-in decision as the Minister knows that we do not recognise
that the opt-in process is triggered in the absence of a Title
V legal base.
7.8 We also note that the Minister
will keep us informed of progress in the negotiations and we ask,
in particular, for a prompt update should the desired change from
the single legal base to the multiple legal bases of the programmes
be achieved.
In the meantime, the documents remain
under scrutiny.
14 See headnote. Back
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