ISDS Case Map
EPAs
Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and ACP countries (under the Cotonou Agreement)
The EC's Head of Delegation to the Pacific has sent to the Pacific EPA negotiating team a letter dated Friday 3 August that states Pacific Trade Ministers have misinterpreted an earlier EC communication and there is no conditionality that would reduce the EDF funds available to the Pacific if the region does not sign an EPA.
Nigerian captains of commerce and industry have warned that the proposed trade agreements are not in the best interest of the growth of industry in the country.
The European Union and east African countries thrashing out a new but contentious trade deal will sign parts of it by a Dec. 31 deadline even if all is not ready by then, a Kenyan trade official said on Wednesday.
Pacific Trade Ministers have responded to a threat by the EC to cut development aid funds to the region if the Pacific does not conclude the EPA by the end of the year. In a strongly worded letter to the EC Commissioner for Development, they stated they would “not accept the EC imposing this linkage on the RIP with respect to the EPA.”
Just before the Pacific ACP Trade Ministers Meeting opened in Vanuatu on 31 July 2007, the Deputy Head of the Pacific desk in the EC's DG Development sent the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat an email that stated the Pacific's allocation of the European Development Fund would be cut by 48% if it does not sign up to an EPA and by 26% if a goods-only agreement is concluded.
The EU is doing almost everything possible, both legally and illegally, to get the EPA signed, according to Kwabena Okai Ofosuhene of the Abibimman Foundation in Ghana. “It is very unfortunate and sad that there are key elements within the ECOWAS Commission who are working secretly to enable the EU achieve this.”
The Pacific Forum has for the first time publicly admitted there have been problems in sealing an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union.
"When we try to negotiate as individual countries, we give the Europeans the ammunition to divide and discriminate against us", said Zimbabwe's Deputy Minister of Information and Publicity Bright Matonga.
To many sugarcane-dependent families in western Kenya, January 2008 will come with adverse consequences to livelihoods and life itself as Kenya joins more efficient sugar producers in the free market regimes of COMESA and EPA.
On Monday 16 July 2007, EU and CEMAC Negotiators met in Yaounde to advance on the EPA negotiations. On the sideline of the meeting was a public manifestation by CSOs of the region to rise public awareness and especially that of the EU Negotiators on the likely impacts on EPAs on the development prospects of the region.
