ISDS Case Map
EPAs
Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and ACP countries (under the Cotonou Agreement)
Do the Pacific Islands' negotiators genuinely hope they can negotiate a beneficial Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union or are they simply going through the motions and doing what is required of them under the Cotonou Agreement 2000? In the secretive chess game of trade negotiations it is impossible to know.
The South Centre, in partnership with a consortium of ACP and European NGOs, is organizing a high-level conference on negotiations related to Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in Brussels on 12 October 2006.
The conference focuses on three particular problem areas of EPAs. Are EPAs endangering food sovereignty and rural development of mostly agrarian oriented ACP states? Are EPAs in their current form undermining autonomous initiatives of regional integration? What effects are to be expected from a broad liberalisation agenda including the so called "new issues” of investments, competition and public procurement?
A recent draft of the EPA between the EU and 16 Eastern and Southern Africa countries gives a taste of what these treaties might spell out in terms of rights to local biodiversity and traditional knowledge.
Civil societies have asked the Government not to sign any agreement that emerges from current talks with European Union. The non-governmental organisations accused the EU of pursuing its own agenda, which does not match Kenya's or any other African country's.
Two key European Unions heads of trade and development yesterday jetted into Mombasa to thwart a bid by Eastern and Southern Africa ( ESA) countries to scatter the ongoing negotiations between the two trading blocs.
African countries risk sinking further into poverty if the European Union pushes ahead with new free trade deals that could harm local industry and farming by unfair competition, non-governmental aid groups said on Tuesday.
The EU strongly advocates that attracting more foreign investment is a solution to African development problems and that African countries therefore need to include strict investment liberalisation measures in EPAs.
The European Union (EU) is negotiating with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries for a new free trade agreement: the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The liberalisation of services and therefore opening the market for foreign investors is part of these negotiations.
Trade talks between European Union and Eastern and Southern Africa countries are set to be stormy as ESA countries warned the EU against reneging on its earlier promises.
