LIBERIA SANCTIONS
Letter from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP, Minister
for Europe, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Chairman
I am writing to let your Committee know of plans
to adopt a Council Regulation on amending the sanctions measures
relating to Liberia. These implements the Council Common Position,
on which the FCO deposited an EM on 29 June and that you cleared
in the Chairman's sift on 4 July. At the time of deposit we anticipated
that the Regulation itself would fall under the category of non-depositable
documents, however we now understand that this is not the case.
I therefore attach a new EM (not printed) on the Regulation that
implements the Council Common Position which you have already
scrutinised. Since the original EM was written with implementation
of the Common Position in mind, you can be assured that there
is no difference in substance or policy in the new document.
Both the Common Position and Regulation are
due to be adopted at the Council of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA)
on 24 July. If the Regulation is adopted at that time, this will
unfortunately mean that there is insufficient time for your Committee
to scrutinise the document. In light of the need to adopt a regulation
to implement the UN's measures, and given that you have already
cleared the substance of the proposals during scrutiny of the
Common Position, I hope the Committee will understand if I decide
to support the Regulation before scrutiny has been completed.
20 July 2006
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