INSTRUMENT FOR PRE-ACCESSION ASSISTANCE
Letter from Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP,
Minister for Europe, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Chairman
You may welcome an update on the progress that
has been made in the negotiations over the Draft Council Regulation
on the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance since it was considered
by the European Standing Committee in November 2005.
A provisional agreement on the text of the Regulation
was reached at Working Group level on 4 April. The Presidency
has indicated that the Committee of Permanent Representatives
(COREPER) will consider the Regulation on 3 May, along with the
other external relations instruments. The UK is content with the
text as it stands. However, a number of member states maintain
reserves. Notably, France maintains a reserve on the procedure
for agreeing the Multi-annual Indicative Financial Framework (MIFF)
and a number of other Member States maintain reserves on the Cross-Border
Component (CBC) of the instrument. Once these outstanding concerns
have been resolved in COREPER, the Regulation will be submitted
for Parliamentary scrutiny in the normal way.
The IPA is one of six external relations instruments
to be applied during the period 2007-2013. It is designed to simplify
the existing complex set of pre-accession assistance programmes
and streamline them into a single framework, covering both candidate
countries and potential candidate countries. Once the framework
regulation has been agreed, the next step is for the Commission
to present the MIFF in the form of a communication to Council
and Parliament. This will outline the funds available under IPA
by country and by component. It will subsequently be included
in the Commission's Enlargement package, to be presented to the
Council and Parliament annually.
21 April 2006
|
