Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be taken, on behalf of the European Union, within the Joint Committee established by the Regional Convention on pan-Euro-Mediterranean preferential rules of origin as regards the request of Georgia to become a Contracting Party to that Convention

The Regional Convention on pan-Euro-Mediterranean preferential rules of origin lays down provisions on the origin of goods traded under relevant Agreements concluded between the Contracting Parties. Article 5(1) of the Convention provides that a third party may become a Contracting Party to the Convention, provided that the candidate country or territory has a free trade agreement in force, providing for preferential rules of origin, with at least one of the Contracting Parties. For the purposes of the Convention, ‘third party’ means any neighbouring country or territory which is not a Contracting Party.

Georgia submitted its written request for accession to the Convention to the depositary of the Convention (the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU) on 23 September 2015.
Georgian authorities confirm that Georgia has a free trade agreement with Contracting Parties, namely the EU and Turkey. As a consequence, Georgia complies with the condition set out in Article 5(1) of the Convention to become a Contracting Party.

The request should therefore be submitted to the Joint Committee of the Convention for adoption of a Decision inviting Georgia to accede to the Convention. The position to be taken by the EU within the Joint Committee should be established by the Council.

EUR-Lex: COM(2016)282: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2016:282:FIN

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