Eduardo González
The Government of Andorra and the European Commission have successfully concluded the negotiations for the Association Agreement between the Principality and the European Union, thus fulfilling, barely two weeks before the end of the Semester, one of the commitments of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU with the Andorran Government.
The head of the Andorran Government, Xavier Espot, went yesterday to the Commission’s headquarters in Brussels to explain the details of the Agreement, which has been reached after “almost nine years of negotiation”, according to the Andorran Government on its web page.
The double Association Agreement with Andorra and with San Marino was presented yesterday in Brussels by the Commission’s executive vice-president for European Green Pact, Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight and chief political negotiating officer, Maroš Šefčovič, to the General Affairs Council. “I welcome the agreement reached by the lead negotiators, thanks to their tireless efforts over the last two years and their determined will to reach an agreement that will benefit both the people of Andorra and San Marino and the European Union,” he said.
“This Association Agreement will enshrine a privileged relationship between the EU and Andorra and San Marino, both located at the heart of Europe and our internal market,” he continued. “It sets a strong precedent for other third countries contemplating access to the EU internal market and sends a clear message that the EU is open to strong relations with its neighbors,” he added.
For his part, Xavier Espot stressed to the press that the agreed policy lines respect Andorran “specificities” while allowing the country access to the single market, a “primordial element for Andorra’s economic diversification and the construction of a more sustainable and resilient model”. “We are firmly convinced that small states can be important players in building Europe,” he added during a joint press conference with Šefčovič, and San Marino Foreign Minister Luca Beccari.
The agreement was announced before the General Council held yesterday in Brussels, the last one chaired by Spain. Precisely, the governments of Andorra and Spain had insisted throughout the last months on the importance of the Spanish Presidency of the EU for the conclusion of the Association Agreement with the European Union.
In July 2022, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, assured in Madrid, after a bilateral meeting with Espot, of Spain’s support for Andorra in its negotiations of the Association Agreement with the EU and expressed confidence that they could have “a successful momentum” during the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU.
A few months earlier, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, assured in Madrid during an official visit of his then Andorran counterpart, Maria Ubach, that the negotiations for the Association Agreement between the Principality and the EU would be “a priority” of the Spanish Presidency. Albares reaffirmed this idea in June of this year, less than a month before the start of the Spanish Semester, before Ubach’s successor, Imma Tor Faus, and the Andorran minister herself returned to the subject last November in Madrid, when she insisted that the support of the Spanish Presidency of the EU would be “key” in the negotiations of the Agreement.
Andorra and the EU had been negotiating, since 2015, the signing of a new Association Agreement that will allow the Principality access to the European Economic Area (EEA), the framework that brings together all EU member states and three of the four European Free Trade Association states (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and guarantees an internal market regulated by the same basic rules. The EU’s negotiations with Andorra were linked to those with two other small territorial states, Monaco and San Marino.
In accordance with the 2014 negotiating directives, the Association Agreement will take into account the particular situation of Andorra (and San Marino), as well as their specificities deriving from their proximity relations with their neighboring EU Member States, their geography, their size and their small size. All this will be reflected in a number of adaptations, as well as in several transitional periods for the implementation and application of parts of the EU acquis.
