Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Georgia, of the other part.

The Parties have agreed to establish association with the following aims: (a) to promote political association and economic integration between the Parties based on common values and close links, including by increasing Georgia's participation in EU policies, programs and agencies; (b) to provide a strengthened framework for enhanced political dialogue on all areas of mutual interest, allowing the development of close political relations between the Parties; (c) to contribute to the strengthening of democracy and to political, economic and institutional stability in Georgia; (d) to support the efforts of Georgia to develop its economic potential through international cooperation, including through the approximation of its legislation to that of the EU; (e) to achieve Georgia's gradual economic integration into the EU Internal Market, as stipulated in this Agreement, in particular through establishing a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area which will provide for far-reaching market access on the basis of sustained and comprehensive regulatory approximation in compliance with the rights and obligations arising from its WTO membership; and (f) to establish conditions for an increasingly close cooperation in other areas of mutual interest. The Parties have agreed on anti-circumvention mechanism for agricultural products and processed agricultural products: the products listed in Annex II-C to this Agreement are subject to the anti-circumvention mechanism set out in this Article; the average annual volume of imports from Georgia into the Union for each category of those products is provided in Annex II-C to this Agreement. Regarding obligatory marking or labelling in particular, the Parties agree that: (a) they will endeavor to minimize their needs for marking or labelling, except as required for the adoption of the Union acquis in this area and for the protection of health, safety or the environment, or for other reasonable public policy purposes; (b) a Party may determine the form of labelling or marking but shall not require the approval, the registration or the certification of labels; and (c) the Parties retain the right to require the information on the label or marking to be in a specified language. As regards animal diseases and infections in animals (including zoonosis), the following shall apply: the importing Party shall recognize for trade purposes the animal health status of the exporting Party or its regions determined in accordance with the procedure set out in Annex VI to this Agreement, with respect to animal diseases specified in Annex V-A to this Agreement. The Parties recognize for trade purposes the pest status in respect of pests specified in Annex V-B to this Agreement as determined in Annex VI-B. For purposes of certification procedures and issuing of certificates and official documents the parties agree on the principles set out in Annex X to this Agreement. A Party shall not be required to protect as a geographical indication a name that conflicts with the name of a plant variety or an animal breed and as a result is likely to mislead the consumer as to the true origin of the product. A name protected under this Agreement may be used by any operator marketing agricultural products, foodstuffs, wines, aromatized wines or spirit drinks conforming to the corresponding specification. The Parties shall protect plant varieties rights, in accordance with the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants and shall cooperate to promote and enforce those rights. The Parties recognize the value of multilateral environmental governance (air quality; water quality and resource management, including flood risk management, water scarcity and droughts as well as marine environment; waste management; nature protection, including forestry and conservation of biological diversity; industrial pollution and industrial hazards, and chemicals management) and agreements as a response of the international community to global or regional environmental problems, and stress the need to enhance the mutual supportiveness between trade and environmental policies. In this context, the Parties commit to consult and cooperate as appropriate with respect to negotiations on trade-related environmental issues and with respect to other trade-related environmental matters of mutual interest. The Parties reconfirm their commitment to enhance the contribution of trade to the goal of sustainable development in its economic, social and environmental dimensions. Cooperation shall aim at mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well as promoting measures at international level, including in the areas of: (a) mitigation of climate change; (b) adaptation to climate change; (c) carbon trading; (d) research, development, demonstration, deployment and diffusion of safe and sustainable low carbon and adaptation technologies, and (e) mainstreaming of climate considerations into sector policies. The Parties recognize the importance of ensuring the conservation and the sustainable use of biological diversity as a key element for the achievement of sustainable development, and reaffirm their commitment to conserve and sustainably use biological diversity, in accordance with the Convention on Biological Diversity and other relevant international instruments to which they are party. The Parties recognize the importance of ensuring the conservation and the sustainable management of forests and of forests' contribution to the Parties' economic, environmental and social objectives. To that end, the Parties commit to: (a) promoting trade in forest products derived from sustainably managed forests, harvested in accordance with the domestic legislation of the country of harvest, which could include bilateral or regional agreements to that end; (b) exchanging information on measures to promote the consumption of timber and timber products from sustainably managed forests and, where relevant, cooperate to developing such measures; (c) adopting measures to promote the conservation of forest cover and combat illegal logging and related trade, including with respect to third countries, as appropriate; (d) exchanging information on actions for improving forest governance and where relevant cooperating to maximize the impact and ensure the mutual supportiveness of their respective policies aiming at excluding illegally harvested timber and timber products from trade flows; (e) promoting the listing of timber species under CITES where the conservation status of those species is considered at risk; and (f) cooperating at the regional and the global levels with the aim of promoting the conservation of forest cover and the sustainable management of all types of forests. Taking into account the importance of ensuring responsible management of fish stocks in a sustainable manner as well as promoting good governance in trade, the Parties commit to: (a) promoting best practices in fisheries management with a view to ensuring the conservation and the management of fish stocks in a sustainable manner, and based on the ecosystem approach; (b) taking effective measures to monitor and control fishing activities; (c) complying with long-term conservation measures and sustainable exploitation of marine living resources as defined in the main UN and FAO instruments relating to these issues; (d) promoting coordinated data collection schemes and scientific cooperation between the Parties in order to improve current scientific advice for fisheries management; (e) cooperating with and within relevant Regional Fisheries Management Organizations as widely as possible; and (f) cooperating in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and fishing related activities with comprehensive, effective and transparent measures. The Parties shall also implement policies and measures to exclude IUU products from trade flows and their markets.