Proposal for a Council Decision on EU accession to the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC)

The International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) is the International Commodity Body (ICB) for cotton. Its mission is to assist governments in fostering a healthy world cotton economy. It does this by ensuring transparency on the world cotton market, by serving as a clearinghouse for technical information on cotton production and a forum for discussion of cotton issues of international significance. ICAC acts as a statistical observer and brings together producing, consuming, and trading countries and all segments of the cotton industry. It has an overall facilitating role. It is not engaged in cotton price setting or determination.

To date, the ICAC is one of the few ICBs where the European Union is not a member, whereas nine Member States have been members of the ICAC in their own right (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and Spain). Membership of ICAC is in the interest of the Union, owing to the significance of cotton to the Union's economy. The EU is a producer of cotton and has evolved from a net cotton importer to a net cotton exporter as of 2009. The EU textiles and clothing industry is an important user of cotton cloth. Moreover, cotton is an important area for European development cooperation, the EU remaining a main donor to the African cotton sector.

On various occasions, the Council of the European Union has requested the European Commission to consider EU membership of ICAC. It authorised the Commission in 2013 to negotiate, on behalf of the European Union and on the basis of negotiating directives, the accession of the Union to ICAC. In view of the accession of the Union to ICAC, all the Member States have notified ICAC of their withdrawal from membership in line with Article II, section 3 of the ICAC's rules and regulations.

EUR-Lex: COM(2016)712: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2016:712:FIN

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