Rome I – Agreement Reached by EP and Council?

The EP’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) adopted in its meeting of 20 November 2007 a Draft Legislative Resolution on the Rome I Proposal on the law applicable to contractual obligations, on the basis of a new set of 62 “final” compromise amendments presented by the rapporteur, Ian Dumitrescu.

According to the Rome I page of Diana Wallis’ website (who acts as an EP shadow rapporteur in the Rome I codecision procedure, after her successful work on Rome II Regulation), the final amendments, which modify a substantial part of the recitals and provisions of the Regulation, have been drafted by the rapporteur following a series of informal trialogues with the Council Presidency and the Commission (thus adopting a different approach from the one taken in the Rome II procedure, in which an agreement could be found by the institutions only in the last-resort Conciliation Committee).

The vote on the Draft Legislative Resolution at first reading by the Parliament’s plenary session is scheduled on 29 November 2007. According to the Rome I OEIL page, the text will be then examined by the Council in its meeting of 6 December 2007: given the agreement reached in the trialogues, it is entirely possible that the text will gain at least political agreement in the Council, thus making the adoption of the act far more imminent than previously expected (see Council’s document no. 15325/07 of 19 November 2007 – currently not accessible, whose title reads “Approval of the final compromise package with a view to a first reading agreement with the European Parliament”).

Further information on the evolution of the codecision procedure will be posted as soon as it is available.