Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-03-Speech-2-574-000"
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"en.20120703.23.2-574-000"2
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"Madam President, thank you for the opportunity to clarify outstanding issues regarding the Agreement on conformity assessment and acceptance (ACAA) between Israel and the EU.
However, as stated before, this does not and cannot imply any recognition of Israel’s jurisdiction over these territories. According to information received from Israeli authorities and NGOs, there is currently no pharmaceutical production in Israeli settlements. Therefore, Israel cannot discriminate against Palestinian products in the certification process because Israel will have to apply the EU
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Like any EU Member State, Israel must carry out inspections irrespective of the origin of the product when a request is received. If there were cases of discrimination, the Palestinian manufacturer could lodge a complaint with the Israeli judicial authorities. Of course, the Commission could also use existing means under the association agreement to ensure that Israel implements the ACAA.
Turning to the 2005 Technical Arrangement which allows the EU to identify and deny preferential treatment under the association agreement to goods produced in areas beyond Israel’s pre-1967 borders, it must be recalled that preferential treatment in terms of customs tariffs is an entirely different issue to conformity assessment and that the origin of the product fully keeps its relevance when the certified product is to enter the territory of the EU.
There have been cases of abuse, which have been detected and tackled appropriately, but they are few and insignificant in volume of trade. The Commission is presently working on a modification of the system, including the publication of a list of settlement codes, which will increase awareness of EU importers and will allow customs authorities to verify these declarations more effectively.
Finally, the Foreign Affairs Council, on 14 May, held a substantive discussion on the Middle East peace process and agreed
that the EU will assess whether existing legislation, in particular, in the area of labelling, is being fully and effectively implemented.
Let me start by recalling what an ACAA is about. Its objective is to eliminate barriers to trade, through allowing products covered by the agreement to enter the markets of the parties without additional conformity assessment procedures, resulting in mutual recognition of conformity assessment and inspection results, which will reduce costs and time for economic operators.
This is typically a response to technical barriers to trade. The Commission considers that the current ACAA text is compliant with the Lisbon Treaty and international law and that no change or renegotiation is necessary. The Commission would like to provide the following assurances to the Parliament:
First, the ACAA is a Protocol to the EU-Israel association agreement. Therefore, while not defining it, its scope of application is the same as set out in Article 83 of the association agreement. As it results from international obligations of the EU and as confirmed by the European Court of Justice in 2010 in the Brita case, the EU does not recognise Israeli jurisdiction over the territories placed under Israeli administration after 1967. The Commission will observe this position in the implementation of the ACAA.
Secondly, when the agreement enters into force, the Commission will have to acknowledge under Article 9 of the ACAA the responsible Israeli authority which will have to deliver conformity certificates. This acknowledgement will not entail any recognition of Israeli jurisdiction over territories placed under Israeli administration after 1967.
You can also rest assured that, upon receipt of the Israeli notification of its responsible authority, the Commission will expressly state that acknowledgement is granted only on the basis that the territory covered by the responsible authority does not include the territories brought under Israeli administration in 1967.
Separately, I would like to recall that the ACAAs are not based on the product origin but on mutual trust in the quality of the certification and inspection bodies. ACAAs recognise that certifiers in third countries certify industrial products in the same way as in EU Member States. In practice, the EU will recognise whatever product is certified by Israel, whatever its origin, Israeli or not.
For practical reasons, and for reasons of compliance with WTO’s non-discrimination rules, these agreements cannot discriminate or exclude on the basis of origin. This is also in line with the EU
.
These rules also apply under the ACAA to the Israeli Responsible Authority, which could – under certain conditions – certify not only Israeli products but also those from third countries once the ACAA is in force. In the same vein, Israeli and EU Member State Responsible Authorities could also certify products from the occupied territories."@en1
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