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1. Without prejudice to the specific provisions laid down in Article III-315, agreements between the
Union and third countries or international organisations shall be negotiated and concluded in
accordance with the following procedure.
2. The Council shall authorise the opening of negotiations, adopt negotiating directives, authorise
the signing of agreements and conclude them.
3. The Commission, or the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs where the agreement envisaged
relates exclusively or principally to the common foreign and security policy, shall submit
recommendations to the Council, which shall adopt a European decision authorising the opening of
negotiations and, depending on the subject of the agreement envisaged, nominating the Union
negotiator or head of the Union's negotiating team.
4. The Council may address directives to the negotiator and designate a special committee in
consultation with which the negotiations must be conducted.
5.
The Council, on a proposal by the negotiator, shall adopt a European decision authorising the
signing of the agreement and, if necessary, its provisional application before entry into force.
6. The Council, on a proposal by the negotiator, shall adopt a European decision concluding the
agreement.
Except where agreements relate exclusively to the common foreign and security policy, the Council
shall adopt the European decision concluding the agreement:
(a) after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament in the following cases:
(i) association agreements;
(ii) Union accession to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms;
(iii) agreements establishing a specific institutional framework by organising cooperation
procedures;
(iv) agreements with important budgetary implications for the Union;
(v) agreements covering fields to which either the ordinary legislative procedure applies, or the
special legislative procedure where consent by the European Parliament is required.
The European Parliament and the Council may, in an urgent situation, agree upon a time-limit for
consent.
(b) after consulting the European Parliament in other cases. The European Parliament shall deliver its
opinion within a time-limit which the Council may set depending on the urgency of the matter.
In the absence of an opinion within that time-limit, the Council may act.
7. When concluding an agreement, the Council may, by way of derogation from paragraphs 5, 6
and 9, authorise the negotiator to approve on the Union's behalf modifications to the agreement
where it provides for them to be adopted by a simplified procedure or by a body set up by the
agreement. The Council may attach specific conditions to such authorisation.
8. The Council shall act by a qualified majority throughout the procedure.
However, it shall act unanimously when the agreement covers a field for which unanimity is required
for the adoption of a Union act as well as for association agreements and the agreements referred to
in Article III-319 with the States which are candidates for accession.
9. The Council, on a proposal from the Commission or the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs, shall
adopt a European decision suspending application of an agreement and establishing the positions to
be adopted on the Union's behalf in a body set up by an agreement, when that body is called upon to
adopt acts having legal effects, with the exception of acts supplementing or amending the
institutional framework of the agreement.
10. The European Parliament shall be immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure.
11. A Member State, the European Parliament, the Council or the Commission may obtain the
opinion of the Court of Justice as to whether an agreement envisaged is compatible with the
Constitution. Where the opinion of the Court of Justice is adverse, the agreement envisaged may not
enter into force unless it is amended or the Constitution is revised.
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