Joint Committee
1. A Joint Committee shall be established, consisting of representatives of the Contracting Parties, and shall be responsible for the sound application of this Agreement. To that end, it shall make recommendations and take decisions in the cases provided for by the Agreement. It shall act by mutual agreement.
2. The Joint Committee shall adopt its Rules of Procedure, which shall include provisions governing the convening of meetings, the designation of the Chair and the determination of his or her functions.
3. The Joint Committee shall meet as required but no less than once every year. Any Contracting Party may request that a meeting be convened.
4. The Joint Committee may decide to establish working parties or expert groups to assist it in the performance of its tasks.
Dispute settlement
1. Each Contracting Party may submit to the Joint Committee a dispute relating to the interpretation or application of this Agreement, in particular if it considers that another Contracting Party is failing repeatedly to take action on requests for cooperation made to it.
2. The Joint Committee shall endeavour to settle the dispute as quickly as possible. The Joint Committee shall be supplied with all relevant items of information to assist its detailed examination of the situation with a view to identifying a satisfactory solution. To that end, the Joint Committee shall examine all possibilities of preserving the sound operation of this Agreement.
Reciprocity
1. The authority of the requested Contracting Party may refuse a request for cooperation where the requesting Contracting Party fails repeatedly to take action on a request for cooperation in similar cases.
2. Before a request for cooperation is refused on the grounds of reciprocity, the Joint Committee shall be informed to give it the opportunity to state its opinion on the matter.
Revision
If a Contracting Party wishes this Agreement to be revised, it shall lay a proposal before the Joint Committee, which shall make recommendations, notably for the commencement of negotiations.
Territorial scope
This Agreement shall apply, on the one hand, to the territory of the Swiss Confederation and, on the other hand, to the territories in which the Treaty establishing the European Community is applied and under the conditions laid down in that Treaty.
Entry into force
1. This Agreement shall be concluded for an indefinite period.
2. It shall be ratified or approved by the Contracting Parties in accordance with their respective procedures. It shall enter into force on the first day of the second month after the last notification of instruments of ratification or approval.
3. Until the entry into force of this Agreement, each Contracting Party may, at the time of the notification referred to in paragraph 2 or at any other subsequent time, declare that it shall consider itself bound by the Agreement in its relations with any other Contracting Party having made the same declaration. These declarations shall take effect 90 days after the date of receipt of the notification.
Denunciation
The European Community or the Swiss Confederation may denounce this Agreement by notifying the other Contracting Party of its decision. The denunciation shall take effect six months after the date of receipt of the notification of the denunciation.
Application over time
The provisions of this Agreement shall be applicable to requests concerning illegal activities committed at least six months after it was signed.
Extension of the Agreement to the new Member States of the European Union
1. Any State which becomes a Member State of the European Union may, by written notification to the Contracting Parties, become a Contracting Party to this Agreement.
2. The text of the Agreement in the language of the new acceding Member State as established by the Council of the European Union shall be authenticated by an Exchange of Letters between the European Community and the Swiss Confederation. It shall be considered to be authentic within the meaning of Article 48.
3. This Agreement shall enter into force in relation to any new Member State of the European Union which accedes to it 90 days after the receipt of its instrument of accession, or on the date of entry into force of this Agreement if it was not yet in force when that 90-day period expired.
4. If this Agreement is not yet in force when the new acceding State notifies its instrument of accession, Article 44(3) shall apply.
Languages
1. This Agreement is drawn up in duplicate in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish languages, each of these texts being equally authentic.
2. The Maltese language version of this Agreement shall be authenticated by the Contracting Parties on the basis of an Exchange of Letters. It shall also be authentic, in the same way as for the languages referred to in paragraph 1.
Source: EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the EU), © European Union, reuse permitted under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
