EUROPEAN ORDER FOR PAYMENT PROCEDURE (7615/04,
6133/06)
Letter from Rt Hon Baroness Ashton of
Upholland, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department
for Constitutional Affairs to the Chairman
I am writing to inform you about the latest
developments in the negotiations of this proposed Regulation.
A Council Common Position was adopted under
the Austrian Presidency. The text, which I enclose for your information,
in all but one respect follows in substance the Commission's amended
proposal of 9 February 2006 (Document 6133/06) although there
have been some drafting amendments following consideration by
the jurist-linguists.
The main difference between the texts is the
definition of cross-border in Article 3. The Commission's text
refers to at least one of the parties having to be domiciled or
habitually resident in a State (rather than a Member State) other
than the Member State of the court seised. However, as I explained
in the Explanatory Memorandum to 6133/06, we did not expect the
Commission to pursue this point. As anticipated the definition
agreed at the December Council last year was retained for the
Common Position.
Since agreement of the Common Position we have
been awaiting the result of the European Parliament's Second Reading.
The Parliament recently accepted the proposal with one amendment
to the main text in Article 31(2) to say:
"Where reference is made to this paragraph,
Article 5a of Decision 1999/468/EC, as amended
by Decision 2006/512/EC, shall apply, having regard to
the provisions of Article 8 thereof".
The effect of this amendment is to allow the
European Parliament to scrutinise any amendments to the standard
forms under Article 30. The Council is likely to agree this amendment
next month and it is hoped the Regulation will be adopted during
the Finnish Presidency.
13 November 2006
Letter from the Chairman to Rt Hon Baroness
Ashton of Upholland
Thank you for your letter of 13 November which
was considered by Sub-Committee E at its meeting on 29 November.
We are grateful for your keeping the Committee informed of developments.
We note in particular that the European Parliament has proposed
an amendment which would enable it to scrutinise amendments to
the standard forms annexed to the Regulation. We welcome this
amendment and are pleased to see that the Council is likely to
accept it.
30 November 2006
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