Regulation 2016/1076 - Application of the arrangements for products from certain ACP states provided for in agreements establishing, or leading to the establishment of, economic partnership agreements (recast) - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 185/1

Council Regulation (EC) No 1528/2007 (3) has been substantially amended several times (4). Since further amendments are to be made, that Regulation should be recast in the interests of clarity.

In accordance with the Partnership Agreement between the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, of the one part, and the European Community and its Member States, of the other part (5), as amended, economic partnership agreements (EPAs) were to enter into force no later than 1 January 2008.

Since 2002 the Union has been negotiating EPAs with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States in the form of seven regions comprising the Caribbean, Central Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community, the Pacific Island States, the South African Development Community and West Africa. Such EPAs have to be consistent with World Trade Organisation (WTO) obligations, support regional integration and promote the gradual integration of the ACP economies into the rules-based world trading system, thereby fostering their sustainable development and contributing to the overall effort to eradicate poverty and to enhance living conditions in the ACP States. At the first stage, negotiations may be concluded on agreements leading to the establishment of EPAs covering, as a minimum requirement, WTO-compatible goods arrangements consistent with regional economic and political integration processes, to be complemented as soon as possible by complete EPAs.

Those agreements establishing, or leading to the establishment of, EPAs for which negotiations have been concluded provide that the parties may take steps to apply the agreement, before provisional application on a mutual basis, to the extent feasible. It is appropriate to take action to apply the agreements on the basis of those provisions.

The arrangements included in this Regulation are to be amended, as necessary, in accordance with the agreements establishing, or leading to the establishment of, EPAs, as and when such agreements are signed and concluded pursuant to Article 218 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and are either provisionally applied or in force. The arrangements are to be terminated in whole or in part if the agreements in question do not enter into force within a reasonable period of time in accordance with the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

For imports into the Union, the arrangements in the agreements establishing, or leading to the establishment of, EPAs should provide for duty-free access and no tariff-rate quotas for all products with the exception of arms. Those arrangements are subject to transitional periods and arrangements for certain sensitive products and specific arrangements for the French overseas departments. Given the specific nature of the case of South Africa, products originating in South Africa should...