EC/Albania Stabilisation and Association Agreement: application. Codification

PURPOSE: to codify Council Regulation (EC) No 1616/2006 on certain procedures for applying the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and Albania, of the other part, and for applying the Interim Agreement between the European Community and Albania.

PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.

CONTENT: in the interests of clarity and rationality, the purpose of this proposal is to undertake a codification of Council Regulation (EC) No 1616/2006 of 23 October 2006 on certain procedures for applying the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and Albania, of the other part, and for applying the Interim Agreement between the European Community and Albania.

Council Regulation (EC) No 1616/2006 has been substantially amended. It is recalled that on 1 April 1987 the Commission decided to instruct its staff that all acts should be codified after no more than ten amendments, stressing that this is a minimum requirement.

The Conclusions of the Presidency of the December 1992 Edinburgh European Council confirmed this, stressing the importance of codification.

The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission agreed, by an interinstitutional agreement dated 20 December 1994, that an accelerated procedure may be used for the fast-track adoption of codification instruments.

The new proposed Regulation will supersede the various acts incorporated in it; this proposal fully preserves the content of the acts being codified and hence does no more than bring them together with only such formal amendments as are required by the codification exercise itself.