Forné says no one can guarantee Andorra’s customs deal will survive a “No” vote

David Forné, Secretary of State for Energy Transition, Transport and Mobility, has weighed in on the future of the customs agreement between Andorra and the European Union.

In a post on X, he pointed to Article 21 of the customs agreement, which allows either party to terminate it with six months’ notice.

“Article 21 is clear: either party can terminate the customs agreement with six months’ notice, after which it ceases to exist. No one can say that will happen, but no one can guarantee that it won’t,” Forné wrote.

The Secretary of State was referring to the clause governing the agreement’s duration. Under Article 21, either contracting party can terminate it by sending written notice to the other. The agreement then ceases to have effect six months after the notice is given.

A possibility set out in the agreement

Forné’s post comes after an exchange between Landry Riba, Secretary of State for Relations with the European Union, and Alfons Clavera, secretary-general of Andorra Endavant, over what could happen to the customs agreement if Andorra rejects its association agreement with the EU.

Clavera had argued that rejecting the association agreement would not necessarily mean the customs agreement would disappear. Riba responded by sharing several documents and saying the evidence Clavera had presented should, at the very least, lead him to qualify that claim.

Among the documents Riba shared was an excerpt from a European report discussing the possibility of renegotiating certain aspects of the customs regime in the context of the single market. However, the report does not say that renegotiation would necessarily follow if Andorra rejects the association agreement, or that the current customs agreement would automatically end.

The EU has not threatened to terminate the customs agreement

The European Union has not announced plans to terminate the customs agreement. The document cited by Landry Riba discusses reviewing certain agreements if Andorra joins the single market, but does not say the customs agreement would end if the Principality rejects the association deal.

Linking the possibility of termination to a “No” vote therefore conflicts with the document’s argument: it places a possible review in the context of integration into the single market, not rejection of the association agreement.

Forné’s intervention focuses on a different point: the customs agreement itself includes a mechanism that allows either party to terminate it. 

The possibility that it could cease to be in force is written into the agreement, but that does not mean it would be triggered if voters reject the association deal.