Council Resolution of 28 October 1999 on mutual recognition
19. 5. 2000 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 141/5 COUNCIL RESOLUTION of 28 October 1999 on mutual recognition (2000/C 141/02) THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, 1. RECALLING the objectives of the Treaty establishing the European Community, particularly the free movement of freedom of establishment, goods, persons and services, the public consumer protection, and the protection of health and the environment; 2. RECALLING its Conclusions of 30 March 1998 on mutual recognition; electrical engineering, construction products and motor vehicles), services sector (for example, financial services) and professional qualifications (for example, recognition of diplomas); 10. TAKES NOTE that economic operators and citizens do not always make full and proper use of the mutual recognition because they are not sufficiently aware of the principle and its operational consequences; 3. WELCOMING the Commission’s communication on mutual recognition in the context of the follow-up to the action plan for the single market and the Commission’s first biennial report the principle of On the application of mutual recognition in product and services marketsí; 11. TAKES NOTE that in some cases economic operators and citizens may refrain from relying on mutual recognition that since for feel they administrative procedures obtaining mutual recognition are too burdensome or difficult; 4. EMPHASISING that the mutual recognition principle has made positive contributions to the free movement of goods and services in many cases and has brought the single important benefits market, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises; the functioning of for 5. ACKNOWLEDGING that the application of the principle of mutual recognition of goods and services is primarily the responsibility of the Commission is the guardian of the proper application of the principle; the Member and that States of 6. CONSIDERING that there is a need for a coherent combi- nation standardisation, instruments for conformity assessment, such as accredi- tation, and mutual recognition to ensure the proper func- tioning of the single market; harmonised legislation, 7. EMPHASING the need for proper application of principle of mutual recognition in the context of enlargement of the Union; the the 8. EMPHASISING the importance of mutual recognition also in the context of the World Trade Organisation and the new round of international trade negotiations; 12. TAKES NOTE, furthermore, that administrations in Member States may in some cases have problems in applying mutual recognition effectively for reasons of insufficient legislation and information about other Members States’ verification procedures or lack of knowledge about practical application of the principle; reasons of for 13. UNDERLINES that more extensive information, especially on the economic aspects, may be needed in order to assess accurately the effects of application and non-application of the mutual recognition principle; 14. CALLS UPON the Member States to continue to develop appropriate measures, in order to provide economic operators and citizens with an effective framework for mutual recognition: including the following, (a) review and simplify the relevant national legislation and for example, by inserting its application procedures, appropriate mutual in relevant legislative proposals and improving national procedures for applying efficiently these clauses; recognition clauses 9. DRAWS attention to the need for further efforts to improve the application of the principle of mutual recognition. Particular consideration must be given to problems in some ares of the goods sector (for example, foodstuffs, (b) deal effectively with requests from economic operators and citizens, reply rapidly to those requests, ensure that legal complaint mechanisms operate appropriately and strengthen the non-judicial problem-solving mech- anisms, including administrative cooperation; C 141/6 EN Official Journal of the European Communities 19. 5. 2000 (c) increase the awareness of citizens and economic operators of their rights concerning mutual recognition and reinforce the dialogue with citizens and economic operators in order to receive information from them on the functioning and non-functioning of mutual recog- nition by using established problem-solving framework; the (d) support the Commission in its activities for collecting information on those sectors where mutual recognition constitutes a problem for their industry or service providers when transferring goods or to other Member States; services (e) ensure that the information exchange obligations, which are addressed to the Member States, set out in Directive 98/34/EC, as amended by Directive 98/48/EC, and Decision No 3052/95/EC are fully and effectively implemented in order to identify and prevent technical barriers to trade in national legislation; (f) give special attention to the importance of further developing and extending the use of mutual recog- nition of all conformity assessment procedures, such as inspection reports, certificates and conformity marks. reports, test 15. INVITES the Commission to continue its efforts to collect data from the Member States authorities, business and consumers’ representatives and other interest groups on successes and shortcomings in the field of mutual recog- nition and their economic impact and to include such data in the biennial the single markt reports as well as scoreboard and carry out in cooperation with economic operators and the Member States studies relating to equiv- alence of conformity in sectors where mutal recognition applies and identify methodologies which would facilitate national authorities to assess the equivalence of the degrees of protection; 16. INVITES the Commission to take the appropriate measures and initiatives in order to improve the application of the mutual recognition principle, such as: (a) increase the awareness of citizens and economic rights concerning the principle operators of their for example, active information campaigns, through, guidebooks and brochures and develop the existing feedback instruments in order to receive information from economic operators and citizens; (b) rely, as much as possible, on administrative cooperation and pursue rigorously its activities aiming at bringing to an end infringements of the recognition, using the powers principle of mutual in the in particular given to it by the Treaty, framework of Directive 98/34/EC, as amended by Directive 98/48/EC, and Decision No 3052/95/EC; the application of (c) ensure that policies in the field of mutual recognition are co-ordinated with other Community policies and consider all available instruments, such as harmonised legislation mutual recognition, conformity assessment and standardisation; (d) establish concrete and practical guidelines on the proper application of the mutual recognition in the field of goods, services and professional qualifictions; (e) use the single market the successes and shortcomings in the field of mutual recognition. scoreboard to present 17. ENCOURAGES economic operators and citizens to make full use of the mutual recognition principle by: (a) availing themselves of mutual recognition; their right to benefit from (b) informing Member States and the Commission of any problems they encounter and using legal procedures available and Community legislation, where necessary; in national (c) using information material provided by the Member States and the Commission. 18. RESOLVES TO REVIEW the implementation of this resolution by the end of the year 2001 on the basis of the biennial report and the successive editions of the scoreboard produced by the Commission and decide on further action, if necessary