Acquis

Categories: European Union law | French words

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The French term acquis (or sometimes acquis communautaire) is used in European Union law to refer to the total body of EU law accumulated so far. The term is also used to describe laws adopted under the Schengen treaty, prior to its integration into the European Union legal order by the Treaty of Amsterdam, in which case one speaks of the Schengen acquis.

Chapters of the Acquis

During the process of the enlargement of the European Union, the acquis was divided into 31 chapters for the purpose of negotiation between the EU and the candidate member states for the fifth enlargement (the ten that joined in 2004 plus Romania and Bulgaria). These chapters were:

Free movement of goods Free movement of persons Freedom to provide services Free movement of capital Company law Competition policy Agriculture Fisheries Transport policy Taxation Economic and Monetary Union Statistics Social policy and employment Energy Industrial policy Small and medium-sized enterprises

Science and research Education and training Telecommunication and information technologies Culture and audio-visual policy Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments Environment Consumers and health protection Cooperation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs Customs union External relations Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Financial control Financial and budgetary provisions Institutions Others

For the negotiations with Croatia and Turkey, the acquis was split up into 35 chapters instead, dividing the most difficult ones into separate chapters for easier negotiation as well as renaming a few of them:

1. Free movement of goods
2. Freedom of movement for workers
3. Right of establishment and freedom to provide services
4. Free movement of capital
5. Public procurement
6. Company law
7. Intellectual property law
8. Competition policy
9. Financial services
10. Information society and media
11. Agriculture and rural development
12. Food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy
13. Fisheries
14. Transport policy
15. Energy
16. Taxation
17. Economic and monetary policy
18. Statistics
19. Social policy and employment (including anti-discrimination and equal opportunities for women and men)
20. Enterprise and industrial policy
21. Trans-European networks
22. Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments
23. Judiciary and fundamental rights
24. Justice, freedom and security
25. Science and research
26. Education and culture
27. Environment
28. Consumer and health protection
29. Customs union
30. External relations
31. Foreign, security and defence policy
32. Financial control
33. Financial and budgetary provisions
34. Institutions
35. Other issues

Such negotiations usually involved agreeing transitional periods before new member states needed to implement the laws of the European Union fully and before they and their citizens acquired full rights under the acquis.

Other uses

The term acquis has been borrowed by the World Trade Organization Appellate Body, in the case Japan - Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages, to refer to the accumulation of GATT and WTO law ("acquis gattien"), though this usage is not well established.

It has been used to describe the achievements of the Council of Europe (a body unconnected with the European Union):

The Council of Europe’s acquis in standard setting activities in the fields of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental human rights and freedoms should be considered as milestones towards the great European political project, and the European Court of Human Rights should be recognised as the pre-eminent judicial pillar of any future architecture.

(Section 12, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Resolution 1290)

It has also been applied to the body of "principles, norms and commitments" of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE):

Another question under debate has been how the Partners and others could implement the OSCE acquis, in other words its principles, norms and commitments on a voluntary basis.

Intervention by Ambassador Aleksi Härkönen, Permanent Representative of Finland to the OSCE, Annual Security Review Conference [1]

The OECD introduced the concept of the OECD Acquis in its "Strategy for enlargement and outreach", May 2004.

External links

• EUR-Lex, European Union Lawcs:Acquis communautaire

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