PROCESS TA' NEGOZJATI BEJN MALTA U L-EU: MALTA TAGHLAQ B'SUCCESS TLIET OQSMA OHRA

Il-konferenza dwar il-process ta' shubija ta' Malta fl-UE regghet iltaqghet dalghodu fi Brussel fejn kien hemm qbil bejn Malta u l-Unjoni sabiex issir rakkomandazzjoni lill-Ministri ta' l-Affarijiet Barranin illi jinghalqu tliet oqsma miftuha ghan-negozjati fil-laqgha Ministerjali li jmiss li ghandha ssir fil-21 ta' Novembru.

Dawn l-oqsma huma l-Kultura u Politika Awdjo-Vizivi, li kien infetah matul il-Presidenza Portugiza, kif ukoll dawk ta' l-Istatistika u l-Politika tal-Harsien tal-Konsumatur u tas-Sahha, li nfethu mill-Presidenza Franciza.

L-Unjoni Ewropea ssottomettiet ukoll il-Pozizzjoni Komuni taghha dwar il-qasam tas-Sajd, fejn in-negozjati ghadhom ghaddejjin. F'dan il-qasam Malta qieghda titlob illi tigi stabbilita zona ta' konservazzjoni ta' 25 mil madwar il-Gzejjer Maltin. Huwa mistenni illi Pozizzjonijiet Komuni ghas-sitt oqsma ohra illi nfethu matul il-Presidenza Franciza jigu pprezentati x-xahar id-diehel.

Matul il-laqgha ta' dalghodu, ic-Chairman tal-Grupp Ewlieni ta' Negozjaturi Maltin, is-Sur Richard Cachia Caruana, esprima s-sodisfazzjon tal-Gvern Malti ghall-mod kif qed jimxu n-negozjati u stqarr illi Malta hija lesta illi tkompli taghlaq in-negozjati f'oqsma ohra matul il-Presidenza Franciza ta' l-UE.

Fid-diskors tieghu, is-Sur Cachia Caruana rega' semma' wkoll l-ghan ta' Malta hija illi ssir membru ta' l-UE fl-ewwel tkabbir li jmiss.

Waqt din il-laqgha l-Ambaxxatur Franciz Pierre Vimont, f'isem il-Presidenza, iddeskriva r-rizultati tan-negozjati s'issa bhala success. Minn naha tieghu, id-Direttur Generali ghat-Tkabbir fil-Kummissjoni Ewropea, is-Sur Eneko Landaburu, qal illi l-fatt li Malta diga' ghalqet 10 oqsma fi zmien hekk qasir huwa impressjonanti.

Is-Sur Cachia Caruana kien akkumpanjat mill-Ambaxxatur ta' Malta fi Brussel, Victor Camilleri, minn Patrick Tabone, Assistant Personali tal-Ministru ta' l-Affarijiet Barranin, Graziella Pullicino, Ko-ordinatur fis-Segretarjat tan-Negozjati ma' l-UE, u minn numru ta' ufficjali ohra mill-Ambaxxata ta' Malta fi Brussel.

Dawn li jsegwu huma d-diskors shih tas-Sur Richard Cachia Caruana, kif ukoll siltiet mid-diskorsi tal-kelliema l-ohra.

STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF MALTA BY MR RICHARD CACHIA CARUANA, CHAIRMAN, CORE NEGOTIATING GROUP AT THE THIRD MEETING OF THE ACCESSION CONFERENCE AT DEPUTY LEVEL, BRUSSELS. 24 OCTOBER 2000.

This accession conference is today formally entering into its second phase.

During the first phase Malta opened eight chapters of which seven have already been provisionally closed. During this second phase our wish is to continue moving forward at a pace which will, over the next twelve months, help Malta achieve its objective of catching up with the most advanced candidates in order to ensure its inclusion in the first enlargement. A lot of work has already been done in this regard and we are grateful to the presidency for taking early action to identify the nine chapters on which we will be working during this second phase.

Today's meeting allows us to focus on three of these chapters: Fisheries Policy, Statistics and Consumers and Health Protection. We have also taken up the Culture and Audiovisual Policy chapter which was left outstanding from the first group.

At our last meeting I noted that the acquis on the Culture and Audiovisual Policy chapter carried implications regarding Malta's commitments as a member of the World Trade Organisation and that we were discussing this matter with the Commission services. We are now pleased to note that the additional clarifications we have in the meantime provided to the Commission, together with the understandings reached on the question of Malta's WTO commitments, permit the provisional closure of this chapter. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank the relevant commission services for their cooperation in this matter.

As we have discussed today, two other chapters are ready for provisional closure. Our position papers on the Statistics and Consumers and Health Protection chapters make it clear that there are no substantive issues which require special consideration in the negotiations.

We are nonetheless aware of the continuing work which is required in connection with the acquis on Statistics. Maltese officials are in close contact with their Eurostat colleagues on this matter. As a result of this collaboration the process of completing work on Malta's Purchasing Power Parities has been concluded earlier than originally expected. The relevant figures which should be made public in the very near future will eventually be of use in the negotiations on other chapters, in particular the chapter on Regional Policy. They should also be relevant in helping us pursue the still unresolved question of Malta's participation in the two pre-accession instruments - ISPA and SAPARD.

With regard to the acquis on Consumers and Health Protection, Malta has updated its Consumer Affairs Act, and is in the final stages of the process of adopting substantive new legislation in the form of a General Product Safety and Quality Act. In addition to other legislation, these will ensure full compliance with the acquis. Various administrative measures are also being taken to enhance our capacity to implement the acquis in this field. These include the setting up of a market surveillance committee within the Ministry for Economic Services and the establishment of the Malta Tourism Authority.

The fourth chapter on today's agenda, that dealing with Fisheries Policy, requires some further work. We have taken good note of the contents of the European Union's common position on this chapter with regards to those issues on which clarifications are required. Most of these issues concern technical matters which can be readily resolved.

The issue of major concern to Malta under the Fisheries Policy chapter relates to the question of the 25 mile conservation zone. We recognise that the matter touches upon aspects of general principle which are of concern to the Union, and on which we are fundamentally not at odds. At the same time we are encouraged to note that the common position concentrates on the essential point of direct interest to Malta by inviting us to provide further justifications for our request as regards restrictions on fishing effort, in particular further scientific and economic data on the evolution of catches and fishing effort for the stocks concerned. Over the coming weeks we propose to work as closely as possible with experts both in the Commission and in the interested Member States to respond to this request. We are confident that this is a matter which can be resolved at expert level.

One other issue of special interest to Malta concerns the catch quota under the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). We note that the Union is proposing that Malta's relative share will be determined on the basis of the principle of relative stability. We would like to obtain further details on this. Our experts will therefore be consulting with their counterparts in the Commission and in Member States in this regard.

Following today's session we look forward to the next Deputies' meeting during which the six remaining chapters from the nine identified by the French Presidency should be discussed. We hope that some of these chapters will also be closed during this presidency. Work on all of them is well under way. All our negotiating positions on these six chapters have been submitted and have been issued as documents of this conference. We are also in close consultation with the Commission services in their preparation of the draft common positions.

In this regard we attach importance to the opportunity to continue providing additional information and clarification on our negotiating positions both to the Commission services as well as to Member States while the draft common positions are being finalised. This informal interaction helps to resolve a number of minor technical issues which would otherwise protract the negotiating process unduly.

At the present stage there are two chapters which could benefit significantly from this interaction. These are the chapters on Company Law and Economic and Monetary Union. On both these chapters Malta's position paper indicates that there are no substantive issues to be resolved during the negotiations. With regards to Company Law we have recently enacted major legislation on Intellectual and Industrial Property which completes the legislation which we have had in place for the last few years. We also have the main administrative structures in place. As a result we are now well prepared to adopt the acquis.

The same situation prevails with regards to the chapter on Economic and Monetary Union. The legislation, structures and procedures we have had in place for many years only needed a certain amount of adaptation and improvement in order to come to par with the community requirements. Here again the process of adaptation is proceeding smoothly.

In the light of this situation it is our hope that whatever explanations or clarifications are needed in order to permit these chapters to be provisionally closed could be finalised through informal consultations over the coming days.

The other four chapters for which we have submitted our negotiating positions include a number of issues which need to be dealt with during the negotiations. We have requested a special arrangement under the Free Movement of Capital chapter, three transition periods under the Competition chapter, three transition periods and a special arrangement under the Transport chapter, and four transition periods under the Social Policy chapter.

Most of our requests under these chapters concern technical issues which arise from practical considerations relating to the time and cost of implementing the relevant provisions of the acquis. No effort has been spared in engaging the social partners fully in our internal deliberations. This is particularly the case

with regards to our requests under the Social Policy and Transport chapters. We are confident that these issues can be dealt with under the existing negotiating procedures. In this context we welcome the indications given by the Commission and Member States regarding the intention to start dealing substantively with requests for transition periods.

Under the Competition and the Free Movement of Capital chapters there are two issues of major concern for Malta. The question of state aid for our shipyards and the question of safeguards on the purchase of property in Malta raise important social and economic issues. For this reason we believe that the necessary political considerations need to accompany the technical discussions on these chapters. It seems to us that the negotiating process, as it is currently structured, may need to be further refined in order to provide this political dimension in the consideration of such issues. We are ready to discuss with you the manner in which this can be done.

Looking beyond the current year we hope that during the first six months of 2001 our negotiations will finally reach the critical mass which guarantees Malta's inclusion in the next enlargement. For this reason we would like to see the opening of the remaining chapters under the Swedish presidency. We also hope that during the Swedish presidency the Union will be in a position to fix a time-table for the conclusion of the accession negotiations.

From our side we are taking the necessary action to ensure that we will be ready in time. Our negotiating positions on all the remaining chapters are being completed and we will be formally submitting most, if not all, of these positions before the end of this year.

Looking back over the last nine months we realise that a lot of ground has been covered. I would like to put on record our appreciation of the constructive role which has been played in this regard, first by the Portuguese presidency and now by the French presidency. We recognise the competing claims on the attention of these two presidencies, especially by the demands of the Inter-Governmental Conference on Institutional Reform, the success of which is also of great interest to Malta. In this context, we particularly welcome the effort and determination with which both these presidencies continued to assign a high priority to the enlargement negotiations.

I also wish to register our appreciation of the supportive role of the Commission services, and in particular the Malta Team in DG Enlargement. A special word of welcome is due to the new Head of the Malta Team who has taken up his duties only recently.

At the start of our negotiations in February, Malta's Minister of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed Malta's commitment for membership of the European Union, in both political as well as practical terms. I believe that the progress we have made in the negotiations over the last nine months confirms this commitment. We are confident that the continuing progress in our future negotiations as well as the contents of the annual report to be issued by the Commission over the coming days will further reinforce this confirmation.

EXTRACTS FROM THE INTERVENTIONS MADE BY AMBASSADOR PIERRE VIMONT, PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF FRANCE, AND MR. ENEKO LANDABURU, DIRECTOR GENERAL FOR ENLARGEMENT AT THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION, AT THE THIRD MEETING AT DEPUTY LEVEL OF THE ACCESSION CONFERENCE WITH MALTA HELD IN BRUSSELS ON 24 OCTOBER 2000.

Ambassador Pierre Vimont, Permanent Representative of France, as President-in-Office, declared that one had to acknowledge the impressive progress achieved by Malta since the start of the negotiations. He added that the Union would also continue to do its best to register as much progress as possible in the accession negotiations with Malta. Ambassador Vimont continued that the Union would pursue its commitment to move as fast as possible in the negotiation process despite the fact that the chapters being considered now are of a more complex nature.

In this respect he assured the Maltese delegation that the French Presidency would open all the nine chapters with Malta according to its work programme. He recalled the principle of differentiation adopted in Helsinki, stressing that each candidate country should be considered on its own merits, depending on the speed with which it adopts and implements the acquis. Ambassador Vimont said that the fact that Malta was closing another three chapters today points to the Union's commitment to abide by this principle. He therefore encouraged Malta to persevere in its commitment to adopt and implement the acquis as quickly as possible.

Mr. Eneko Landaburu, Director General for Enlargement at the European Commission, also welcomed the Maltese delegation. He affirmed that the principle of differentiation agreed in Helsinki is being applied to Malta. He described the closing of another three chapters by Malta as "spectacular progress", going on to say that "The gap is closing and Malta will soon catch up with the first group of candidate countries". Mr. Landaburu reiterated that this was a remarkable achievement and encouraged Malta to continue with its efforts to implement the acquis.