Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 (First reading) - Political agreement - Main contents

Document date	20-11-2015
Publication date	21-11-2015
Reference	14189/15
From	Presidency
External link	original article
Original document in PDF

Council of the European Union Brussels, 20 November 2015

PUBLIC

(OR. en)

14189/15

Interinstitutional File:

2013/0119 (COD) LIMITE

JUSTCIV 267 FREMP 262 CODEC 1530

NOTE

From: Presidency

To: Permanent Representatives Committee/Council

No. prev. doc.: 13144/15 + ADD 1

No. Cion doc.: 9037/13 + ADD 1 (en) + ADD 2

Subject: Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union and

amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 ( First reading) - Political agreement

• I. 

  INTRODUCTION

• 1. 

  On 26 April 2013, the Commission submitted a proposal for a Regulation of the European

  Parliament and of the Council on promoting the free movement of citizens and businesses by simplifying the acceptance of certain public documents in the European Union and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 (the 'proposed Regulation').

• 2. 

  On 15 and 16 June 2015, the Council (JHA) approved as a general approach the compromise text set out in ADD 1 to 3 to document 9332/15, in combination to the partial general

  approach of March 2015 set out in ADD 1 to document 6812/15.

• 3. 

  On the same occasion, the Council agreed that the text of the general approach should be the basis for the negotiations with the European Parliament.

II. STATE OF PLAY

(a) Negotiations with the European Parliament

• 4. 

  On 4 February 2014, the European Parliament adopted its position at first reading on the

  proposed Regulation 1 .

• 5. 

  On the basis of the March and June 2015 general approach, the Presidency started negotiations with the European Parliament, with a view to reaching an early second reading agreement before the end of the year.

• 6. 

  The discussions resulted in an agreement between the representatives of the European

  Parliament and of the Council on a compromise package set out in ADD 1 to document 13144/15.

• 7. 

  An important element of the compromise package was the addition of seven new annexes to the Regulation, containing the standard parts of multilingual standard forms to be used as

  translation aids attached to public documents concerning the following circumstances: whether a person is alive, capacity to marry, marital status, capacity to enter into a registered partnership, registered partnership status, domicile and/or residence, and absence of a criminal record.

• 8. 

  On 21 and 22 October 2015, the compromise package was confirmed by COREPER. On the same occasion, COREPER invited the Working Party on Civil Law Matters (Legalisation) to finalise the examination of the seven new annexes as soon as possible.

  (b) Additional annexes

• 9. 

  On 4 November 2015, the Working Party on Civil Law Matters (Legalisation) reached an agreement with respect to the content of those seven new annexes.

1 5905/14 CODEC 237 JUSTCIV 18 PE 46

• 10. 

  However, the discussions at Working Party level showed that delegations had serious concerns in relation to the future size, and consequently production costs, of the multilingual standard forms to be established by the Commission in accordance with the proposed Regulation. In light of this, the Commission is invited to take the above concerns into account and to establish, in cooperation with the Member States, multilingual standard forms that are as user-friendly and economical as possible.

  (c) Consolidated version of the proposed Regulation

• 11. 

  On 9 November 2015, the Presidency transmitted to the European Parliament a consolidated

version of the proposed Regulation 1 , drawn up on the basis of the following documents

6812/15 + ADD 1, 9332/15 + ADD 1, ADD 2, ADD 3, 13144/15 + ADD 1 and 13770/15 + COR 1, which also included the seven new annexes agreed at Working Party level on 4 November 2015.

• 12. 

  On 12 November 2015, that consolidated text was endorsed by the European Parliament's

  Committee on Legal Affairs. On the same date, the Chair of said Committee addressed a letter

  to the Chair of COREPER II to inform him that, should the Council formally transmit its

  position to the European Parliament in the form presented in the Annex to that letter, he

  would recommend to the Plenary that the Council's position be accepted without amendment,

  subject to legal-linguistic verification, at the European Parliament's second reading.

• 13. 

  The consolidated version of the proposed Regulation, supplemented with the multilingual glossaries of the standard entries, is set out in ADD 1 to this note.

1 13786/15 JUSTCIV 258 FREMP 246 CODEC 1475.

III. CONCLUSIONS

• 14. 

  Against this backdrop, COREPER/the Council is therefore invited:

  (a) to adopt a political agreement on the consolidated text of the proposed Regulation, as set out in ADD 1 to this note;

  (b) to initiate the legal-linguistic revision of the consolidated text;

  (c) to submit the consolidated text, as finalised by the legal-linguistic experts, and accompanied by the statement of the Council's reasons, as an "A" item, to the Council for adoption of its position at first reading at one of its forthcoming sessions.