Proposal for a Council Decision Amending Decision 2007/641/EC concluding consultations with the Republic of Fiji Islands under Article 96 of the ACP-EC Partnership Agreement and Article 37 of the Development Cooperation Instrument, and extending the period of application thereof

The military take-over in Fiji in December 2006 led to consultations under Article 96 of the revised Cotonou Agreement. These resulted in April 2007 in agreed commitments concerning human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law. On 1 October 2007 the Council, in its Decision 2007/641/EC decided on appropriate measures for Fiji to establish a degree of parallelism between Fiji’s respect for the agreed commitments and development cooperation.

Due to delays in implementing the commitments agreed with the EU the Council decided to extend the validity of the appropriate measures for Fiji on a number of occasions.

Since early 2012 some positive developments can be noted, namely the lifting of the Public Emergency Regulations on 7 January 2012 and the launch on 9 March 2012 of a political process that would see a new constitution by March 2013 and the re-establishment of a constitutional democracy through new parliamentary elections by September 2014. Restrictions on certain human rights and fundamental freedoms do, however, remain.

Taking into account the above considerations, the European Union should at this stage adapt and extend the current policy and appropriate measures. Therefore, the Commission is proposing to the Council to amend the aproppriate measures in order to encourage Fiji to continue on its path towards restoration of democracy, rule of law and full respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms and to extend their period of application for a further 12 months ending on 30 September 2013.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)460: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:460:FIN

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