PURPOSE: to approve, on behalf of the European Union
(EU), Samoa's accession to the Interim Partnership Agreement
between the European Union, of the one part, and the Pacific
States, of the other part.
PROPOSED ACT:
Council Decision.
ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: Council may adopt the
act only if Parliament has given its consent to the
act.
BACKGROUND: on 12 June 2002, the Council authorised
the Commission to open negotiations for Economic Partnership
Agreements with the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of
States.
On 30 July 2009, the European Union signed the Interim
Partnership Agreement between the European Community, of the one
part, and the Pacific States, of the other part, which establishes
a framework for an Economic Partnership Agreement. The Interim
Partnership Agreement has been provisionally applied by Papua New
Guinea and by Fiji since 20 December 2009 and 28 July 2014,
respectively.
On 5 February 2018, Samoa submitted an accession
request together with a market access offer to the Council. The
Commission found Samoa's offer acceptable and concluded
negotiations with Samoa on 23 April 2018. Samoa's accession
should now be approved on behalf of the European Union.
CONTENT: with this proposal, the Commission invites
the Council to approve, on behalf of the Union, Samoa's
accession to the Interim Partnership Agreement between the
European Community, of the one part, and the Pacific States, of the
other part.
The EPA is a
development-oriented trade agreement, which offers asymmetric
market access to Samoa and allows it to shield sensitive
sectors from liberalisation, while providing a large number of
safeguards and a clause for infant industry protection. It further
contains provisions on the rules of origin that facilitate Samoa's
exports into the EU.
Over the course of its
implementation, the EPA will largely relieve EU exporters of
industrial products to Samoa from paying customs duties. It
satisfies the criteria established in Article XXIV of the GATT 1994
(to eliminate duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce
with respect to substantially all trade between the parties) i.e.:
80 % of EU exports are covered in 15 years. Samoa will benefit from
maintaining their duty-free quota-free market access into the EU
market.
The EPA also establishes a
set of disciplines in the areas of sustainable development;
technical barriers to trade; and Sanitary and Phytosanitary
measures among others. There is a possibility for the EU to avail
itself of the bilateral dispute settlement mechanism foreseen under
the Agreement.
Samoa graduated from the
Least Developed Countries category in 2014; as such it continues to
benefit from the 'Everything But Arms' initiative which offers its
exports duty-free quotafree market access into the EU for a
transitional period ending on 31 December 2018.
As of then, the
standard form of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP)
will apply to Samoa's exports to the EU, which is however less
generous than the EBA.
To maintain full
duty-free-quota-free access to the EU market, Samoa would need to
have joined the existing EPA between the EU, Fiji and PNG as of 1
January 2019. It is therefore foreseen that the EU and Samoa shall
provisionally apply the Agreement subject to notifying each other
in writing of the completion of the procedures necessary for this
purpose in accordance with Article 76(3) of the Agreement.
The scope of the agreement does not cover tax good
governance. The Commission will use the context of the EPA
Committee meeting to raise with the Samoan authorities their
situation towards the EU list, in particular to advocate for tax
reforms in line with the EU listing criteria.
The proposal provides that the approval of the
accession must not be construed as conferring rights or imposing
obligations which can be directly invoked before Union or Member
State courts or tribunals.