Article 1 
The position to be taken on the Union’s behalf at the seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (the ‘Conference of the Parties’) is the following: (a) the Union shall not support the amendments to Article 6(2) of the Convention, as submitted by the Russian Federation, but shall support initiatives designed to improve the functioning of the procedure of ‘prior informed consent’, provided that they are in line with broad Union policies and objectives and do not require amending the Convention; (b) the Union shall continue to support the adoption of the amendments to Annex IV and to certain entries in Annexes II and IX to the Convention submitted on the Union’s behalf and discussed by the Conference of the Parties during its fifteenth meeting. If needed in order to ensure that consensus is found on an amendment to Annex IV, the Union may show flexibility and agree to depart from its proposal, as long as the amendment contributes to increasing legal clarity of the Annex and to the implementation of the control mechanisms of the Convention, and does not undermine Union law regarding the management and shipments of waste.
Article 2 
Refinement of the position referred to in Article 1 may be agreed to, in the light of developments at the seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, by representatives of the Union, in consultation with the Member States, during on-the-spot coordination meetings without a further decision of the Council.
Article 3 
This Decision shall enter into force on the date of its adoption.