Safeguard measures provided for in the EEC/Norway Agreement. Codification

PURPOSE: codification of Regulation (EEC) No 1692/73 of the Council of 25 June 1973 on the safeguard measures provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Kingdom of Norway.

PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.

CONTENT: in the interests of clarity and transparency of Union law, the purpose of this proposal is to undertake a codification of Regulation (EEC) No 1692/73 on the safeguard measures provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Kingdom of Norway.

Regulation (EEC) No 1692/73 of the Council has been substantially amended several times. It is recalled that in 1987, the Commission decided to instruct its staff that all acts should be codified after no more than ten amendments, stressing that this is a minimum requirement. The Edinburgh European Council in December 1992 confirmed the importance of codification as it offers certainty as to the law applicable to a given matter at a given time.

The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission agreed, by an interinstitutional agreement dated 20 December 1994, that an accelerated procedure may be used for the fast-track adoption of codification instruments.

The new Regulation will supersede the various acts incorporated in it; it fully preserves the content of the acts being codified and hence does no more than bring them together with only such formal amendments as are required by the codification exercise itself.