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1. Upon receipt of the notification referred to in Article 3, the Commission shall assess whether the Member State may open formal negotiations.

2. In making that assessment, the Commission shall first check whether any relevant negotiating mandate with a view to concluding a Community agreement with the third country concerned is specifically envisaged within the next 24 months. If this is not the case, the Commission shall assess whether all of the following conditions are met:

(a) the Member State concerned has provided information showing that it has a specific interest in concluding the agreement due to economic, geographic, cultural, historical, social or political ties between the Member State and the third country concerned;

(b) on the basis of the information provided by the Member State, the envisaged agreement appears not to render Community law ineffective and not to undermine the proper functioning of the system established by that law; and (c) the envisaged agreement would not undermine the object and purpose of the Community’s external relations policy as decided by the Community.

3. If the information provided by the Member State is not sufficient for the purposes of the assessment, the Commission may request additional information.