ISDS Case Map
EPAs
Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and ACP countries (under the Cotonou Agreement)
Negotiations between African countries and the European Union aimed at finalizing free trade deals known as Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are continuing apace. As part of the process that will finalise EPA deals sometime in 2007, Eastern and Southern Africa countries have just submitted a draft EPA document to the EU. But, in this article, Richard Kamidza documents the astonishing lack of consultation in the negotiating process, claiming that in some cases even cabinet ministers don't know the details.
The networks of farmers' organizations of five ACP sub-regions (Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa and the Caribbean) have carried out their own mid-term assessment of the state of progress in the negotiation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in order to contribute to the formal review foreseen in article 37,4 of the Cotonou Agreement.
The ACP farmer networks present their contributions to the Comprehensive Review of EPA Preparations and Negotiation for All ACP Regions
Paper presented to the European Commission in Brussels by Liepollo Lebohang Pheko from IGTN-Africa on the gender impacts of liberalization of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA).
The European Union is insisting that some of Africa's poorest countries accept liberalisation of services, investment and competition policy as the price of better access to the world's richest market, it emerged last night.
Not many Caribbean leaders are expected to attend the two-day summit of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group starting in Sudan Thursday, but the region will follow its agenda quite keenly, including a proposed Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union and a new threat to its ailing banana industry.
Letter leaked to the Financial Times outlining the European Commission's response to the Pacific's proposals on their EPA, rejecting most of them.
The regional ministerial committee monitoring the negotiation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between West Africa and the European Union has requested a three year extension of the 2007 deadline for the conclusion of the negotiations for a free trade area of the two economic blocs.
In the economic field, imperialism's consternation with the slow pace of forging multilateral North-South agreements under the Doha round of meetings of the World Trade Organization have led to the more energetic push for bilateral Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).
The member organizations of Via Campesina in Africa, in Europe and in the Caribbean consider that the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) are a new threat for the peasants and small farmers in the four regions. We ask a definitive stop in the negotiations and the opening of a period of debate and analyses on the impacts of free-trade on our national agricultures. Alternatives based on the right to food sovereignty exist.
