Brussels, 13/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - The Council of the EU on 11 October gave the green light in Luxembourg (through the written procedure) to the conclusion of a series of agreements involving the EU and its Member States, all of its Mediterranean partner countries, Bulgaria, Romania, the countries in the European Free Trade Area and the Faroe Islands. These agreements will authorise the cumulation of origin between all of these countries. The final decision on this enlargement of the pan-European mechanism to all neighbouring areas will in fact be taken under existing structures (e.g. Association Councils) linking the EU to these countries. This decision aims to create a vast area covering all of the European continent and the areas surrounding the Mediterranean in which enterprises can undertake industrial activity without restrictions in the movements of their goods. The rules in force under agreements with the EU allow free access for products originating from a country in this area, but not those involving one or more other countries (“diagonal cumulation”).
Having been negotiated for several years, the institution of this “diagonal cumulation” was recommended at the Euromed ministerial conference of March 2002 in Toledo. The trade ministers of the EU and the Mediterranean confirmed this request at the meeting in Palermo on 7 July 2003. The ministers also invited the partners concerned to take the necessary measures to insert the new protocol into their respective agreements. This would oblige the EU and all these countries to redraft their legislative and regulatory texts. A system of diagonal cumulation of origin had been put in place in 1997 between the European Community and the future Member States and candidate countries (Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) and with Slovenia, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland (and Liechtenstein). This was also extended to Turkey in 1999. More than two years was needed to finalise the procedure and, particularly, to translate into all the languages the 130 very technical protocols which formalise this agreement which is supposed to promote the integration of the euroMediterranean zone and to prepare its enterprises for the institution of both “vertical” (between the EU and each of these countries) and “horizontal” (also between those countries) free trade. This delay led Tunisia and Turkey on one hand, and Morocco and Turkey on another, to request a derogation to allow them to anticipate the right to “cumulation” for their textile products, as a support measure in the face of Chinese competition, which was granted to them in August. Israel and Jordan have also asked for anticipation measures to facilitate their direct trade, and these were permitted by the European Commission in spite of the lack of a free trade agreement between the two countries.