18/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - In a press release, the Commission has welcomed the proposal of the Council to create a Euro-Mediterranean cumulation of origin zone. This zone would include 16 commercial partners of the EU, which are also members of the euro-Mediterranean partnership: Algeria, Bulgaria, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Egypt, the Faroe Isles, Iceland, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Norway, Romania, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. It will allow the economic actors of these countries to benefit from preferential tariff treatment for goods exported to the EU or transiting through the EU. In 1997, the cumulation of origin system was applied between the EU, the countries of the European Free Trade Association (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein) and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Turkey joined in 1999.