Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, assured his Andorran counterpart, Maria Ubach, yesterday that the negotiations for the Association Agreement between the Principality and the EU will be “a priority” of the Spanish Presidency.
“Andorra can count on the support and accompaniment of Spain in the negotiations of the Association Agreement with the EU”, so that this process “has the necessary political impetus from within the EU”, Albares declared during the joint press conference following his bilateral meeting with Ubach at the Palacio de Viana, in Madrid. “If the agreement is not reached before then, although we are confident that it will be reached, the negotiation of the Association Agreement will be a priority during the period of the Spanish Presidency of the EU, in the second half of 2023,” he added.
Andorra and the EU have been negotiating, since 2015, the signing of a new Association Agreement that would allow the Principality to access 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 are linked to those with two other small territorial states, Monaco and San Marino.
“The Agreement involves many more countries than just Spain and Andorra, such as Monaco, San Marino and the rest of the EU States, and the Commission is the one negotiating it”, but Andorra has “Spain’s full support” because “many aspects of Spain’s life fall under the competence of Brussels and, therefore, we need this agreement so that relations between Spain and Andorra have all their vitality”, he added.
For her part, Ubach thanked Spain for its “continuous support” in these negotiations and highlighted Spain’s “sensitivity” to the specificities of Andorra. It is “a long and complex process” that constitutes a “priority for Andorra” because it “will allow it to participate in the EU internal market”, he added. It so happens that the two States bordering Andorra will soon hold the Presidency of the EU, France in the first half of 2022 and Spain in the second half of 2023, which could facilitate the completion of negotiations in this second year.
On the other hand, Albares announced during the press conference that Spain will send “shortly” to Andorra another 20,000 doses of the vaccine against COVID-19 “in conditions very similar to those of the first shipment”. Last August, the Spanish Ministry of Health sent its Andorran counterpart 30,000 doses from the company Pfizer/BioNTech. This shipment was made possible following advance purchase agreements (APAs) negotiated centrally by the European Commission, whereby Italy was responsible for sending vaccines to San Marino and Vatican City and France and Spain undertook to do the same for the Principality. In response to this announcement, Maria Ubach expressed her “sincere thanks” to Spain for its “good collaboration” during the pandemic.
