ISDS Case Map
EU
European Union
As the recently initialled interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) continues to take centre stage, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Africa have vowed to step up their stop-EPA campaign saying the pact has contentious issues.
Sir Shridath Ramphal yesterday made a strong plea to the European Union (EU) for "greater equity" in the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) being negotiated with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and, specifically, the one to be signed this coming June with the Caribbean Community and the Dominican Republic.
Bahrain human rights activists will raise issues related to "unconstitutional" constituency boundaries at a key meeting with the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. They are joining another group of activists from GCC states, who will meet officials from the European Union Commission and European Parliament in Brussels. The GCC group will highlight their reservations on their governments' approach to various human rights issues ahead of the signing of a Gulf-EU Free trade agreement.
At the 19th Intercessional Meeting of Caricom Heads of Government in the Bahamas, Prime Minister Golding called on Caribbean companies to join together in joint ventures because, acting independently, individual enterprises will be unable to penetrate European markets or to achieve the levels of efficiency that each country requires to enter and dominate those markets. He said the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) will provide a challenge to which the region must respond.
The United States should build on the North American Free Trade Agreement by negotiating a new free trade deal with the 27 nations of the European Union, Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Wednesday.
Experts have qualified the economic partnership agreement Cameroon signed with the European Union on December 17, 2007 as a veritable jinx that would inflict a heavy decline on customs revenue.
Kenya signed an interim trade pact with the European Union in mid November to save its domestic and foreign investors who would have preferred to relocate to lowly ranked neighbouring states in the region, a senior official has disclosed.
Ahead of another round of negotiations to conclude the economic partnership agreements with the European Union, civil society from East and Southern Africa meet in Kampala this week to take a common position on the remaining issues -- services, agriculture, investment, competition and government procurement.
On his arrival at a Joint Parliamentary Assembly of EU and ACP countries in Slovenian capital Ljubljana this week, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel was confronted with an array of parliamentarians and civil society activists carrying the message, 'Brussels-made EPAs will not fit ACPs'.
The Andean Community Member Countries intensified their preparations this week for the Third Round of Negotiations for the establishment of an Association Agreement with the European Union, which will be held this coming April 21 to 25 in Quito
