Organization Overview
The European Union (EU) is a family of 27 democratic European countries, committed to working together for peace and prosperity. The EU Member States (MS) have set up common institutions such as the European Commission (EC) and the European External Action Service (EEAS) to which they delegate some of their sovereignty so that decisions on specific matters of joint interest can be made democratically at the European level and to ensure that these decisions are then represented by one single entity.
The EU’s decision-making process involves three main institutions:
- the European Parliament (EP), which represents the EU’s citizens and is directly elected by them;
- the European Commission, which upholds the interests of the Union as a whole;
- the Council of the European Union, which represents the individual Member States;
This ‘institutional triangle’ produces the policies and laws that apply throughout the EU.
The Commission is also the EU’s executive arm – in other words, it is responsible for implementing the decisions of the Parliament and the Council, which means implementing its policies, running its programmes and spending its funds.
The European Commission has four main roles:
- to propose legislation to the Parliament and the Council;
- to manage and implement EU policies and the budget;
- to enforce European law (jointly with the Court of Justice);
- to represent the European Union on the international stage, for example by negotiating agreements between the EU and other countries.
The European Commission Delegation to the Republic of Tajikistan opened in 2004 in Dushanbe. Until the end of 2009 it remained under the responsibility of the Delegation in Kazakhstan. It was upgraded to a fully-fledged Delegation, reporting directly to headquarters, by the end of 2009, and is now headed by Ambassador Eduard Auer as Head of Delegation.
With the coming into effect of the Lisbon Treaty on 1 December 2009, the EC Delegation became the Delegation of the European Union to Tajikistan and the European External Action Service was formally launched on 1 December 2010. The EEAS is unique and independent from other EU institutions, drawing its personnel from EU institutions (Secretariat General of the Council of EU, European Commission) as well as from Foreign Ministries of Member States. It implements the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and other areas of the EU’s external policies. The EEAS is under the authority of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR), a post also created by the Treaty of Lisbon. The EEAS cooperates with the Commission in areas where two institutions share competences.
The legal framework for EU – Tajikistan relations until recently had been the Interim Agreement on trade and trade-related matters (TCA) and as of 1 January 2010, the new legal framework Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) came into force.
| Mr. Raimundas Karoblis
Ambassador/Head of Delegation |