the economic and financial field. National interests are safeguarded because a decision under Article 99 and a directive under Article 100 can only be made on a unanimous vote of the Council, and under Article 100 the Assembly and the Economic and Social Committe must be consulted in the case of directives involving any amendment of national legislation. Article 101, which enables directives to be issued by the Council on a qualified majority vote, is limited to the rectification of a discrepancy in the legislative or administrative provisions of Member States which is found to be interfering with competition within the Common Market and consequently producing distortion which needs to be elminated. Under Article 100 a number of directives of a technical character relating to such matters as public health and pharmaceutical classifications have been issued; use has been made of Article 99 in the field of transport taxation and turnover taxes; the power conferred by Article 101 has never yet been used.
36. Article 220 requires Member States to enter into negotiations with each other to regulate, in the interests of their nationals, a number of matters touching on the establishment of the Common Market. These include the abolition of double taxation, mutual recognition of the status of firms and companies and of their ability to transfer their seat from one country to another or to enter into mergers, and the enforcement of civil judgments. Negotiations presently proceeding in these and allied subjects include some matters which although of Community interest fall outside the scope of the EEC Treaty. Conventions resulting from any of these negotiations will not, strictly, derive their legal force from the EEC Treaty, but any new member joining the Common Market would no doubt be expected to accede to them. Work is in progress on the creation of a European type of company, the creation of a European patent, the creation of a European trade-mark, a convention on bankruptcy and an agreement on jurisdictional competence and the enforcement of civil judgments. Only the last mentioned project is nearing completion. Work on the rest is still in a preliminary stage. Considerable amendment of our national law might eventually be involved; but these are subjects in which, whether we join the European Community or not, we would expect a movement towards greater international assimila- tion of laws.
37. The draft European Convention on jurisdictional competence and enforcement of judgments expressly provides that any new member of the Community will be required to accept the Convention as a basis for the negotiations which are obligatory to implement the relevant part of Article 220 of the Treaty. The Convention goes considerably further than the bilateral conventions on enforcement of judgments which we have hitherto concluded: it covers the power of a court to entertain actions against foreign-domiciled defendants as well as the recognition of any judgment emanating from the court. Accession to this convention would oblige us to abandon some jurisdiction hitherto exercised by our courts and to give effect to certain classes of foreign judgments, particularly those concerning maintenance and affiliation obligations, which are not at present enforceable in this country.
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