EU/Andean Community: negotiating guidelines for an association agreement

 The committee adopted the own-initiative report by Luís YAÑEZ-BARNUEVO GARCÍA (PES, ES) containing a recommendation to the Council on the negotiating mandate for an association agreement between the EU and the Andean Community. The committee emphasised the importance of clearly identifying in the mandate the central issues on which the agreement's political dialogue must focus: governability and democratic stabilisation; corruption, impunity, terrorism, narcoterrorism and its links to organised crime; peacekeeping and security; conflict management; poverty, social cohesion and migration. The other key points of the recommendation were as follows:

- the legal basis on which the new association agreement is to be negotiated should include Article 300(3), second subparagraph (under which the European Parliament must give its assent to the agreement);

- the mandate should also cover the EU-Andean Community agreement on shared responsibility for fighting drug trafficking;

- as in the case of the accord with Central America (see INI/2006/2222), not only must the ‘democracy clause’, other social clauses and environmental clauses be included; the mandate must also refer explicitly to the specific mechanisms which ensure that they are applied and provide for an annual report to Parliament on the follow-up carried out by the Commission in this area;

- as a demonstration of "tangible, decisive support" for the Andean regional integration process, there must be no question of making the conclusion of the EU-Andean Community agreement subject to prior completion of the WTO round negotiations.

- lastly, the specific features of the Andean region must be taken into account, starting from the premise that the training of human resources is a priority for overcoming poverty in the region. Thus, special attention must be given to education, research, science and technology, culture, public health and protection of ecosystems and biodiversity.