1. This Order may be cited as the European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Inter-regional Framework Co-operation Agreement between the European Community and its Member States and the Southern Common Market and its Party States) Order 1997. It shall come into operation in respect of the treaty specified in the Schedule to this Order on the date on which the treaty comes into force for the United Kingdom. This date will be notified in the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes.

2. The treaty specified in the Schedule to this Order is to be regarded as a Community Treaty as defined in section 1(2) of the European Communities Act 1972.

SCHEDULE

Inter-regional Framework Co-operation Agreement between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the Southern Common Market and its Party States, of the other part(2).

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order declares the Inter-regional Framework Co-operation Agreement between the European Community and its Member States and the Southern Common Market and its Party States, done at Madrid on 15th December 1995, to be a Community Treaty as defined in section 1(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. The objectives of the Agreement are to strengthen existing relations between the parties and to prepare the conditions enabling an Inter-regional Association to be created. To those ends, the Agreement covers trade and economic matters, co-operation regarding integration and other fields of mutual interest, including energy, transport, science and technology, telecommunications, the environment, and education and training. The principal effect of declaring this Agreement to be a Community Treaty as so defined is to bring into play in relation to it the provisions of section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972 which provides for the implementation of treaties so specified.