Onderhandelingen voor toetreding IJsland volop aan de gang (en)

First meeting of the Accession Conference with Iceland at Deputy level - Brussels, 19 October 2011

The first meeting of the Accession Conference with Iceland at Deputy level was held today in Brussels to open and provisionally close negotiations on Chapter 2 - Freedom of Movement for Workers and Chapter 7 - Intellectual Property Law. This represents another significant step forward in the accession negotiations.

The European Union delegation was headed by Jan Tombinski, Poland's Permanent Representative to the EU. The Icelandic delegation was led by Stefán H. Jóhannesson, Iceland's Chief Negotiator to the EU.

In relation to Chapter 2 - Freedom of Movement for Workers and Chapter 7 - Intellectual Property Law, given the high level of Iceland's state of preparedness and its fulfilment of obligations regarding both chapters, the EU considered that, exceptionally —in line with point 32 of the Negotiating Framework— benchmarks for the provisional closure of these chapters were not required. Therefore, the EU noted that at this stage these chapters do not require further negotiations.

In addition, the EU underlined that it would devote particular attention to monitoring all specific issues mentioned in its common positions, including administrative capacity, particularly in the field of co-ordination of social security systems in the area of Freedom of Movement for Workers, and the effective enforcement of IP rights in the area of Intellectual Property Law.

Monitoring of progress in the alignment with and implementation of the acquis will continue throughout the negotiations.

The EU will, if necessary, return to the above-mentioned chapters at an appropriate moment.

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With today's Conference, of the 35¹ negotiation chapters, the first 6 chapters have been opened for negotiations of which 4 chapters have been provisionally closed. A further Accession Conference at Ministerial level is planned for December this year in order to take the process forward.

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¹ :

Including Chapters 34 (Institutions) and 35 (Others) which are not screened.