ISDS Case Map
EPAs
Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and ACP countries (under the Cotonou Agreement)
Prime Minister Bruce Golding has announced that Jamaica is to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe on July 15. But he added that the signing could be called off if there is wide scale opposition.
This brochure by Germanwatch and FIAN describes the negative impacts of european exports of poultry and tomato puree on the right to food of Ghanaian smallholder farmers and refers to the further threats by the new economic partnership agreement.
Senior Trade Union Leaders in the region are upset that the Caribbean Labour Movement was not afforded enough imput in shaping the European Union CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) initialled last December.
Some of the 35 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states that have initialled interim economic partnership agreements (EPAs) may still withdraw from the process -- apart from the 44 states that have so far refused to sign EPAs with the European Union -- according to researchers studying the fraught trade negotiating process.
On Thursday June 12, organizations from around the region staged a protest against the EU-Caribbean Economic Partnership Agreement in front of White Hall, the prime minister's office in Trinidad.
Oxfam launched a new research paper today at UNCTAD XII in Ghana. The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the proposed (I)EPA texts and makes a number of recommendations: to evaluate the deals before they are signed, to provide an alternative for countries that choose not to sign and to renegotiate contentious clauses.
Calling for a re-negotiation of a new Economic Partnership Agreement, Federation of Independent Trade Unions and Non Governmental Organisations president David Abdulah says aspects of the agreement could prove to be harmful to the people of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean.
Sovereignty must be partially surrendered if Pacific islands countries are to maintain solidarity in trade negotiations. Pacific countries who are members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific bloc of states had a rude realisation of this basic and age-old truth in their on-going negotiations with the European Commission for an economic partnership agreement.
Trinidad and Tobago is expected by the end of July 2008 to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between CARIFORUM and the European Union along with its regional counterparts.
This paper on government procurement and EPAS written by Stephen Woolcock from LSE recommends that ACP countries first open their procurment markets on a regional basis, before making commitments to the EU.
