HYDROCHLOROFLUOROCARBONS QUOTAS (12123/04,
8718/06)
Letter from Lord Rooker, Minister of State
for Sustainable Farming and Food, Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs to the Chairman
Following the recent placing of Council document
8718/06, which sets out the result from the First Reading in the
European Parliament, I am writing to inform your Committee of
the current position on this dossier.
The substance of the original proposal was set
out in Explanatory Memorandum 12123/04, which was cleared, by
the House of Commons Committee on 3 November 2004 and the House
of Lords on 2 November 2004. Under the proposed legal base (article
57(2) of the Accession Treaty), the European Parliament would
have had no legislative role.
Following discussion in COREPER, it was agreed
to change the legal base to article 175(1) of the EC Treaty (co-decision)
and the Commission confirmed subsequently that it could accept
this change and modify the proposal accordingly. The European
Parliament's first reading of this amended dossier was on 27 April
2006 and the Parliament approved the Commission's modified proposal
without amendment. This should enable the Council to adopt the
proposal as an A point.
As noted in the Explanatory Memorandum, the
dossier will not have any impact on UK law and has only minor
effect on the two UK producers of HCFCs.
18 May 2006
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