Brussels, 24/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 22 March, the General Affairs Council gave its approval for the signing of a protocol to the EU-Israel association agreement on conformity assessment and acceptance of industrial products. For most medicines, this concerns main pharmaceutical principles, and pharmaceutical excipients including mixtures of such excipients for human or veterinary use.
The association agreement, which took effect in November 1995, committed both parties to negotiate such a protocol and stipulates that everything must be done to approximate legislation between them. This text seals the mutual acceptance of manufactured goods that meet the conditions for being legally marketed by one of the parties including, where necessary, mutual recognition of the results of compulsory conformity assessment procedures for industrial products. It sets out that the gradual and progressive adoption by Israel of applicable EU law allows extension of certain advantages arising from the internal market and ensures its good functioning in certain sectors, the protocol states. The aim is to facilitate the elimination, by the parties, of technical obstacles to trade for such industrial products. The EU invites Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein to sign an “equivalent” protocol. The text will be submitted to the European Parliament for scrutiny, the EU Council states. (F.B./transl.jl)