Council Decision (EU) 2019/2143 of 11 November 2019 on the position to be taken on behalf of the European Union within the Trade Committee established under the Interim Partnership Agreement between the European Community, of the one part, and the Pacific States, of the other part, as regards the amendment of Annexes II and VIII to Protocol II of the Agreement

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 207(3) and the first subparagraph of Article 207(4), in conjunction with Article 218(9) thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,

Whereas:

The Interim Partnership Agreement between the European Community, of the one part, and the Pacific States, of the other part^f1 (the ‘Agreement’), signed on 30 July 2009, established a framework for an Economic Partnership Agreement. The Agreement has been provisionally applied by the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, the Republic of Fiji and the Independent State of Samoa since 20 December 2009, 28 July 2014 and 31 December 2018, respectively.

Annex II to Protocol II of the Agreement is based on the 2007 version of the Harmonized System (HS) Nomenclature, annexed to the International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System of the World Customs Organisation. Since 1 January 2007, a number of changes have been made to the HS Nomenclature. It is necessary to take account of those changes and align Annex II with the 2017 version of the HS Nomenclature. However, the status quo regarding the rules of origin should be maintained because changes made to the HS Nomenclature are not intended to affect the rule of origin applicable to a given product.

Annex VIII to Protocol II of the Agreement lists the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) of the Union. Following the change of status of Bermuda^f2, Mayotte^f3 and Saint-Barthélemy^f4, and the entry into force of Council Decision 2013/755/EU^f5 on the association of the overseas countries and territories with the European Union, the list of OCTs needs to be aligned with Annex II of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) in order to take into account those recent changes.

Annexes II and VIII to Protocol II of the Agreement should therefore be amended in order to align them with the 2017 version of the HS Nomenclature and the list of OCTs in Annex II of the TFEU, respectively.

Pursuant to Article 41 of Protocol II of the Agreement, the Trade Committee established under the Agreement (‘Trade Committee’) may decide to amend the provisions of that Protocol.

The Union should determine the position to be taken in the Trade Committee as regards such amendments,

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION: