Considerations on COM(2022)561 - EU position within the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Sub-Committee established by the Association Agreement with Georgia on modification of Annex XI-B to that Agreement

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dossier COM(2022)561 - EU position within the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Sub-Committee established by the Association Agreement with Georgia on ...
document COM(2022)561 EN
date January 23, 2023
 
table>(1)The Association Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community and their Member States, of the one part, and Georgia, of the other part (1) (‘the Agreement’) entered into force on 1 July 2016.
(2)Article 65 of the Agreement established the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Sub-Committee (the ‘SPS Sub-Committee’), which is to consider any matter relating to Chapter 4 (Sanitary and phytosanitary measures) of Title IV (Trade and Trade-related Matters) of the Agreement, including its implementation, and is empowered to review and modify Annex XI-B to the Agreement.

(3)The SPS Sub-Committee is to adopt a decision modifying Annex XI-B to the Agreement, which contains an approximation list of sanitary and phytosanitary, animal welfare and other Union legislative measures to which Georgia is to gradually approximate its sanitary and phytosanitary, animal welfare and other legislative measures pursuant to Article 55(1) of the Agreement.

(4)The SPS Sub-Committee finalised the approximation list set out in Annex XI-B to the Agreement by means of Decision No 1/2017 of the EU-Georgia Sanitary and Phytosanitary Sub-Committee (2).

(5)At seven annual meetings of the SPS Sub-Committee, Georgia informed the Commission on the progress made regarding the approximation of its legislation to the Union acquis. Georgia also informed the Commission of Union legal acts that should be removed from Annex XI-B on the consideration that those Union legal acts are not relevant for Georgia as they are only applicable to Member States.

(6)Since the adoption of Decision No 1/2017, several Union legal acts listed in Annex XI-B to the Agreement have been repealed and some of those repealed Union legal acts have been replaced by new Union legal acts, while other Union legal acts have exhausted their legal effect.

(7)It is thus necessary to modify Annex XI-B to the Agreement in order to reflect the evolution of the Union acquis listed in that Annex and to replace it.

(8)It is therefore appropriate to establish the position to be adopted on the Union’s behalf within the SPS Sub-Committee with regard to the modification of Annex XI-B to the Agreement,