On 18 May 2017, the Official Journal published Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/836 of 11 January 2017 amending Annex III to Regulation (EU) No 978/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council applying a scheme of generalised tariff preferences which grants GSP+ status to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. Article 10(4) of Regulation (EU) No 978/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 permits a beneficiary country under the Generalised Scheme of Tariff Preferences (‘GSP’) to request to benefit from additional tariff preferences under the special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance (GSP+). For that purpose, Article 9(1) of Regulation (EU) No 978/2012 establishes specific eligibility criteria for the granting of the tariff preferences provided under the GSP+. The country should be considered vulnerable due to a lack of sufficient diversification and insufficient integration with the international trading system. It should have ratified all the conventions listed in Annex VIII to Regulation (EU) No 978/2012 and the most recent available conclusions of the relevant monitoring bodies should not identify a serious failure to effectively implement any of those conventions. In relation to any of the relevant conventions, the country should not have formulated a reservation which is prohibited by the convention or which, for the exclusive purposes of Article 9 of Regulation (EU) No 978/2012, is considered to be incompatible with the object and purpose of that convention. It should accept without reservation the reporting requirements imposed by each convention and give the binding undertakings referred to in points (d), (e) and (f) of Article 9(1) of Regulation (EU) No 978/2012.
The Commission has examined the GSP+ request received on 12 July 2016, from Sri Lanka in accordance with the provisions of Article 10(1) of Regulation (EU) No 978/2012, and the Commission has established that Sri Lanka meets the conditions. Accordingly, in Annex III to Regulation (EU) No 978/2012, ‘Sri Lanka’ and the corresponding alphabetical code ‘LK’ are inserted under columns B and A, respectively.
