Import of agricultural products originating in Turkey. Codification

PURPOSE: to codify Council Regulation (EC) No 779/98 on the import into the Community of agricultural products originating in Turkey.

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

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

BACKGROUND: Council Regulation (EC) No 779/98 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 Edinburgh European Council (December 1992) confirmed this, stressing the importance of codification.

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

CONTENT: in the interests of clarity and rationality, the purpose of this proposal is to undertake a codification of Council Regulation (EC) No 779/98 of 7 April 1998 on the import into the Community of agricultural products originating in Turkey, repealing Regulation (EEC) No 4115/86 and amending Regulation (EC) No 3010/95.

The new Regulation will supersede the various acts incorporated in it; it 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.

Main provisions codified: Decision No 1/98 of the EC-Turkey Association Council establishes the system of preferences applicable to imports into the Union of agricultural products originating in Turkey.

The proposed Regulation sets out uniform conditions for the implementation of this system. Implementing powers are conferred on the Commission in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the

European Parliament and of the Council (examination procedure).

In the case of products for which Union regulations require a certain import price to be observed, the application of the preferential tariff system shall be subject to the observance of that price. The same goes for certain fishery products.

It should be noted that the future Regulation shall repeal Regulation (EC) No 779/98.