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The EC’s
participation in mixed international agreements alongside its Member
States raises questions of competences for the negotiation, conclusion
and implementation of such international instruments. In particular
in the field of marine environment substantial progress is hindered
by an opaque division of competences between the EC and its Member
States and lack of coordination. Accordingly, the German Federal
Environmental Agency commissioned Ecologic with the task of analysing
the division of external competences between the EC and its Member
States taking into account the OSPAR
Convention.
The German
Federal Environmental Agency together with Ecologic, presents the
preliminary report and discusses its results in this expert meeting.
It aims at bringing together both, experts negotiating and implementing
obligations of the OSPAR Convention as well as legal experts in
this field. Participants are, in addition to Ecologic staff and
its partner Prof. Dr. Epiney from University
Freiburg/Switzerland, representatives from the Legal
Service of the European Commission, from the German
Federal Environmental Agency, the German
Federal Environmental Ministry, the German
Council of Environmental Advisors as well as from the OSPAR-Secretariat.
The
discussion focuses on the problem of parallel participation of the
EC and its member states in mixed agreements using the example of
the OSPAR-Convention. In particular, the legal consequences of this
parallelism for negotiation and implementation are discussed. In
addition, possible solutions for an effective coordination between
the EC and its Member States are explored. Finally, special attention
is devoted to the issue of the Member States’ rights to take
measures at the national level.
Programme,
participants list and background information of this event are available
in German.
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