EC/Estonia agreement: participation in the European Environment Agency and the European Environment Information and Observation Network

While awaiting the European Parliament's opinion, the Council reached an agreement on a common view concerning the draft decision concerning the conclusion of an agreement between the Community and Estonia on that country's participation in the European Environment Agency and the European Environmental Information and Observation Network. To recapitulate, the Luxembourg European Council of December 1997 established as a principle that, in the framework of the pre-accession strategy, the participation of the candidate countries in the various Community agencies would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. In this context, the Council authorised the Commission to commence negotiations on 14 February 2000 with the candidate countries in central and eastern Europe, as well as with Cyprus, Malta and Turkey so as to enable them to become involved in the activities of the European Environment Agency. The Commission concluded these negotiations and, in November/ December 2000, signed agreements with all of these countries and presented the relevant draft decisions in t proposal transmitted to the Council and the European Parliament on 22.12.2000 (please refer to the preceding resumé). The draft decision referred to the European Parliament on 24.04.2001 does not differ, in terms of content, from the version proposed by the Commission in December 2000. �