International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives (2015)

PURPOSE: to conclude the International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives, 2015.

PROPOSED ACT: Council Decision.

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: Council may adopt the act only if Parliament has given its consent to the act. 

BACKGROUND: on 19 November 2013, the Council authorised the Commission to open negotiations on behalf of the Union in order to conclude a new international agreement on olive oil and table olives.

During the United Nations Conference for the Negotiation of a Successor Agreement to the International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives, 2005, the representatives of 24 Member States of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and two intergovernmental organisations drew up the text of the new Agreement on 9 October 2015.

The new Agreement entered into force provisionally on 1 January 2017.

CONTENT: the Commission called on the Council to approve the International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives, 2015 on behalf of the Union.

The Commission proposes that the President of the Council shall designate the person empowered to proceed, on behalf of the European Union, to the deposit of the instrument of approval, in order to express the consent of the Union to be bound by the Agreement.

The Agreement establishes a decision-making body, called the ‘Council of Members’, which exercises all powers and performs all the functions necessary to achieve the objectives of the Agreement. The Council of Members may amend the designations and definitions of oils, olive pomace oils and table olives provided for in annexes B and C of the Agreement, and thus amend the Agreement. In order to facilitate the adoption of these amendments to the Agreement by the Council of Members, the Commission should be authorised to approve them on behalf of the Union. 

The Commission shall adopt the Union’s positions regarding the proposed amendments to the Agreement, ensuring that these positions are in the interests of the Union, serve the Union’s trade policy objectives, and are not contrary to EU law or international law.

The Commission shall also be assisted by representatives of the Member States, who shall be informed from the moment it prepares the positions it plans to take in the name of the Union.