EU-THIRD COUNTRY AGREEMENTS: TAKING ACCOUNT
OF BULGARIA AND ROMANIA
Letter from Lord Triesman, Parliamentary
Under-Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to the Chairman
Following the accession of Bulgaria and Romania,
it has become necessary to update a number of EU-Third Country
Agreements. A full list of these agreements is attached (Annex
A).
I am submitting for Scrutiny an example of one
such agreement, the amendment of the Partnership and Co-operation
Agreement with Moldova, alongside this letter. This is the second
EU-Third Country Agreement to be prepared by the Commission. The
first such proposed amendment, the EU-Mexico Association Agreement,
cleared Scrutiny in January 2007, (but has yet to be adopted by
Council).
The amending of these agreements is purely a
technical matter, simply incorporating the new Member States as
parties to the Agreement. No further changes are envisaged. In
light of this, I hope you will agree that it will not be necessary
to submits EMs for the future amendments to the EU-Third Country
Agreements listed in Annex A.
The exception to the above is the Partnership
and Co-operation Agreement with Russia. Geoff Roon wrote to you
about this issue on 2 February 2007.
13 February 2007
Annex A
LIST OF
AGREEMENTS TO
BE UPDATED
— Association Agreement with Turkey
and relevant Association Council Decisions
— Stabilisation and Association Agreement
with Croatia
— Stabilisation and Association Agreement
with Macedonia
— Interim Agreement on Trade and Trade-related
matters with Albania
— Stabilisation and Association Agreement
with Albania
— EU Partnership Agreement with India
— EU Partnership Agreement with China
— Canada: Bilateral Agreement on Trade
in Wines and Spirit Drinks
— EU-Chile Association Agreement
— EU-Andean Countries Agreement
— EU-Central America Political Dialogue
and Co-operation Agreement
— EU Association Agreements with all
the Mediterranean Countries
— Partnership and Co-operation Agreement
with Armenia
— Partnership and Co-operation Agreement
with Azerbaijan
— Partnership, Co-operation and Development
Agreement with Georgia
— Partnership and Co-operation Agreement
with Kazakhstan
— Partnership and Co-operation Agreement
with Kyrgyzstan
— Partnership and Co-operation Agreement
with Ukraine
— Partnership and Co-operation Agreement
with Uzbekistan
— Partnership and Co-operation Agreement
with Turkmenistan
— Partnership and Co-operation Agreement
with Belarus
— Trade and Co-operation Agreement
with Mongolia
— European Community-South Africa Trade,
Development and Co-operation Agreement
— EU-Norway Bilateral Trade Agreement
— EU-Iceland Bilateral Trade Agreement
— European Economic Area Agreement
— EU-Faroe Island Bilateral Trade Agreement
Letter from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP, Minister
for Europe, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Chairman
Lord Triesman wrote to you on 13 February 2007
proposing that it should not be necessary to submit Explanatory
Memoranda in respect of Protocols that amend EU-Third Country
Agreements by incorporating Romania and Bulgaria. Your Committee
has, however, requested that a short Explanatory Memorandum be
submitted for all such Protocols.
Since this exchange of letters, the Council
Secretariat informed us on 20 March that Council and Commission
Decisions on the signing, provisional application and conclusion
of a Protocol to incorporate Romania and Bulgaria into the EU-Ukraine
Partnership and Co-operation Agreement are due to be approved
at the Economic and Financial Affairs Council on 26 March. Approval
by the Council on this date would enable the Protocol to be signed
by the EU and Ukraine during the proposed visit of the Ukranian
Prime Minister to Brussels on 27 March.
I do not wish to hold up Council approval of
these documents and am therefore writing to inform you that I
will, in all likelihood, have to approve the documents prior to
completion of scrutiny. Given the straightforward nature of these
documents, as explained by Lord Triesman in his letter of 13 February,
I hope your Committee will understand my decision.
22 March 2007
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