13Strategic Agreements with Australia and New Zealand
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Committee’s assessment |
Legally important |
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Cleared from scrutiny |
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Document details |
(a) Joint proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Framework Agreement between the European Union and its Member States of the one part, and Australia of the other part; (b) Joint Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Partnership Agreement on Relations and Cooperation between the European Union and its Member States of the one part, and New Zealand, of the other part |
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Legal base |
Article 37 TEU and Articles 207, 212(1), 218(6)(a) and the second paragraph of 218(8) TFEU (both) unanimity, EP consent |
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Department |
Foreign and Commonwealth Office |
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Document Numbers |
(a) (38325), 14996/16, JOIN(16) 51; (b) (38326), 14997/16, JOIN(16) 54 |
Summary and Committee’s conclusions
13.1The proposals would enable the EU to conclude (ratify) high level strategic agreements with Australia and New Zealand. They are designed to strengthen cooperation across a wide spectrum of policy fields including human rights, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the fight against terrorism; cooperation on economic and trade matters, health, the environment, climate change, education, culture, labour, disaster management, fisheries and maritime affairs, transport, legal cooperation, and combatting money laundering and terrorist financing, organised crime and corruption. They are a precursor to future trade agreements.
13.2The New Zealand Agreement received the necessary consent of the European Parliament in mid-November. The Australia Agreement has been referred to the European Parliament for its consent, but no decision by that body is expected until April next year.
13.3The agreements raise no policy issue. However the previous Committee raised the issue that the proposals did not distinguish the extent to which the EU was exercising competence in concluding these agreements and thus undermined the Government’s own policy that the EU should only exercise competence in relation to external agreements such as these to the extent that its competence is exclusive, leaving Member States to exercise shared competence.112 We therefore repeated a question, first asked by the previous Committee, as to what steps the Minister intended to take to ensure clarity in respect of the exercise of competence. We also asked for an update on progress in ratification by the UK of the agreements.
13.4The response by the Minster (Sir Alan Duncan) does not directly answer the question asked but asserts that the division of competences between the EU and the Member States is protected by limiting the ability of the EU to trigger provisional application of the agreement. In doing so he does not acknowledge that these proposals are concerned only with the conclusion of the agreements and not their provisional application and that we have already indicated that we consider that the competence to trigger provisional application is different and distinct from the competence to conclude an agreement.
13.5Furthermore Article 2 of each Decision on the signing and provisional application of these Agreements,113 which provide a limited list of the Articles of each agreement being provisionally applied, states that provisional application of these Agreements is being triggered “only to the extent that they cover matters falling within the Union’s competence”; not its exclusive competence.
13.6Furthermore the list of Articles provisionally applied cannot be taken as a guide to those for which the EU has exclusive competence because it does not include matters (such as those on trade and customs) which are clearly of exclusive EU competence.
13.7We therefore draw these proposals to the attention of the House as further examples of the Government undermining its own policy that shared competence should normally be exercised by Member States. We now clear the proposals.
Full details of the documents
(a) Joint proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Framework Agreement between the European Union and its Member States of the one part, and Australia of the other part: (38325), 14996/16, JOIN(16) 51; (b) Joint Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Partnership Agreement on Relations and Cooperation between the European Union and its Member States of the one part, and New Zealand, of the other part: (38326), 14997/16, JOIN(16) 54.
The Minister’s letter of 27 November 2017
13.8The Minister deals with the outstanding requests from the Committee as follows:
“You asked for further information on the issue of competence. I reassure you of my previous letters of 23 September 2016 and 1 February 2017 that the division of competence is protected and the Government has been successful in securing a short list of Articles for provisional application and the division of competences is protected.
“The European Parliament voted consent to the New Zealand Agreement on 16 November. The Australian Agreement is at an earlier stage and we do not expect consent until April 2018.
“On UK ratification of these agreements, activity was paused due to the election. We will shortly seek cross Whitehall Ministerial agreement to proceed with the ratification of the named agreements along with a number of other strategic agreements at a similar stage.”
13.9He added further information on the override in respect of Australia:
“The override for the EU-Australia Framework Agreement was issued to ensure the UK was not delaying signature as the only member state with an outstanding scrutiny reserve. At the time the Commons Scrutiny Committee had not been reconstituted and an override was the only way to move forward. Similarly with the New Zealand Agreement it was necessary to override when the Council Decision on the Conclusion of the Agreement was brought forward.”
Previous Committee Reports
First Report HC 301–i (2017–19), chapter 17 (13 November 2017); Twenty-sixth Report HC 71–xxiv (2016–17), chapter 6 (18 January 2017).
112 Under the Treaties shared competence may be exercised by either the EU or the Member States.
113 Decisions 2016/1546 and 2016/1970.
22 December 2017