- Partial agreement
The term 'Partial Agreement' is one used within the
Council of Europe to refer to a major activity of European cooperation that is organised by the Council of Europe but does not include all of its member states. This form of activity dates from a resolution adopted by the Council of Europe'sCommittee of Ministers on 2 August 1951. The resolution allowed for the adoption of agreements by a limited number of member States, without the participation of the remainder. Any expenditure would be made by the participating States alone. This form of variable geometry in intergovernmental cooperation has not been imitated by otherinternational organisations . This form of cooperation also allows some activities to include non-European states as fully-fledged participants.In 1993 the ground-rules were revised by the Committee of Ministers to take into account new developments. Statutory Resolution (93) 28 of the Committee of Ministers replaced the 1951 resolution. It defines three types of agreement:
- A partial agreement: some member States of the Council of Europe;
- An enlarged partial agreement: some member States with one or more non-member states;
- An enlarged agreement: all member States with one or more non-member states.
The Council of Europe currently lists its agreements as the following:
- The
Council of Europe Development Bank (1956)- Partial Agreement in the Social and Public Health Field (1959) - The
European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (1964)- The
Pompidou Group - Cooperation Group to Combat Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Drugs (1980)- EUR-OPA - The European and Mediterranean Major Hazards Agreement (1987)
- The
North-South Centre (1989)-
Eurimages - The European Support Fund for the co-production and distribution of films (1988)- The
Venice Commission ) - The European Commission for Democracy through Law (1990)- The Youth Card (1991)
- The
European Audiovisual Observatory (1992)- The Centre for Modern Languages in Graz
- GRECO - The
Group of States Against Corruption (1998)- The Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (2007)
Partial Agreements are traditionally set up with a resolution of the Committee of Ministers. The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines, which is usually listed as a Partial Agreement, falls outside of this definition, being the result of a treaty, and is thus technically a treaty body, such as the
European Social Charter organs.There is one agreement, the European Card for Substantially Handicapped Persons, dating from 1977, which was still-born, having never attracted sufficient interest from member states and so was never implemented.
The Agreements each have their own form of supervision and management. A number of them are supervised by the Committee of Ministers, others have their own executive boards.
In 2007, the activities of the
public health partial agreement were transferred to the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines, despite the fact that the member states were not the same.The latest Agreement, on sport, heralds a new development, where an activity that was always a mainstream intergovernmental activity was relegated to a Partial Agreement to avoid it being axed all together.
The Venice Commission is unique as being the one agreement which began life as a Partial Agreement and, being of its success, had to drop the qualifier 'Partial', when the last remaining member state decided to join up.
The Council of Europe treaty office website [http://conventions.coe.int/] issues a regularly updated information document on all Partial and Enlarged Agreements, listing all member States, observers, dates of accession and reference texts.
Further reading
Polakiewicz, J.: Treaty making in the Council of Europe (1999) [http://book.coe.int/EN/ficheouvrage.php?PAGEID=36&lang=EN&produit_aliasid=837]
References
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