(Communicated by the MFA Spokesperson)

 

The European Parliament ratified an extremely important technical-commercial agreement today (Tuesday, 23 October 2012). The AACA agreement (Agreements on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of industrial products) with Israel is a framework agreement that recognizes Israel industrial standards as equivalents to European standards. An appendix regarding pharmaceutical products was added to the vote. The meaning of this is that the European Union will recognize the Israeli pharmaceutical standard, and Israeli pharmaceutical products can now be marketed without delay or further inspection (in parallel to similar marketing of European drugs in Israel). Additional appendixes covering other industrial spheres will be added to the framework agreement in the near future.

 

Due to irrelevant political objections, the agreement was stalled in the European Parliament for the past two years. After many efforts by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israeli embassies in the EU countries and particularly of the mission to the EU, the agreement was finally adopted: in this evening’s vote in Strasbourg, 379 voted for, 240 against and 40 abstained.