Decision (EU) 2019/485 on the conclusion of the relevant agreements under Article XXI of the General Agreement on Trade in Services on compensatory adjustments

Summary:

Council Decision of 5 March 2019 on the conclusion of the compensatory agreements reached between the EU and various WTO Members in order to obtain a consolidated GATS schedule of specific commitments covering all the Member States who were members of the Union in 2006.

Further information:

The terms and conditions under which WTO Members commit access to their market to the services and service suppliers of other WTO Members are specified in their GATS schedules of specific commitments. The original schedule of specific commitments of the European Union and its Member States (the EU GATS schedule) dates back to 1994, and only covers the twelve countries who were members of the EU at that time. The thirteen countries that joined the Union in 1995 and 2004 continued to maintain their individual GATS schedules, which were adopted prior to their accession.

In order to ensure that those thirteen Member States did not maintain commitments which would be in breach of the acquis communautaire and that they were covered by the horizontal limitations included in the EU GATS schedule, it was necessary to notify the modification and withdrawal of certain specific commitments included in the EU GATS schedule and in the individual GATS schedules of the thirteen Member States concerned, and to consolidate those individual schedules with the EU GATS schedule.

The EU subsequently entered into negotiations with eighteen WTO Members who claimed to be affected by these modifications and withdrawals. In the course of these negotiations, the EU agreed on the compensation to be offered to the affected WTO Members. The notified modifications and withdrawals, together with the agreed compensatory adjustments, were incorporated into a consolidated EU GATS schedule, the certification of which was concluded in December 2006.

In March 2007, the European Commission submitted a proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Agreements. In July 2007 the Council agreed on the text of a draft decision and in October 2007 the European Parliament, in a consultation procedure, approved the conclusion of the Agreements. However, by November 2018 the Council had not yet approved the conclusion of the Agreements.

The fact that the Agreements had not been formally concluded was hindering the consolidation process of the EU GATS schedule regarding the Member States having joined the Union after 2006, since the WTO Members who claimed to be affected by the modifications of the schedules of those Member States refused to engage in this process until the legal status of the Agreements had been clarified.

EUR-Lex: COM(2018)733: Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the relevant agreements under Article XXI GATS on compensatory adjustments https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2018:733:FIN

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