ISDS Case Map
EU
European Union
India's commerce department is on a drive to identify 520 items that would be shielded from tariff cuts planned under the proposed India-EU bilateral trade and investment agreement. Tariffs on all other items will have to be reduced to zero in 10 years from the date of implementation of the agreement.
Last week, the EU unilaterally renounced a 32-year sugar protocol that had guaranteed fixed quotas and prices for ACP countries, with no clear indications of how exactly sugar will be treated in the new EPAs.
Myanmar should not be included in the free trade agreement (FTA) between the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the EU following the Yangon military regime's crackdown on mass protests last week, according to members of the European Parliament visiting Singapore.
The combination of the time-factor, the TRIPS-plus implications of many of the elements suggested by the EC, the challenges that would face non-WTO Pacific countries to even adhere to TRIPS and the general level of development in these countries, it is strongly recommended that Pacific countries do not agree to the inclusion of an IP section in the EC-Pacific EPA.
Caribbean trade and political officials are fuming at the European Union's decision last Friday to scrap a 32-year-old agreement with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) sugar-exporting countries, describing the action as "a slap in the face" of the region.
Oil sardine and mackerel are likely to escape the list of duty-free import from Europe in the Indo-European Union trade and investment agreement, set to be signed late next year. The exemption is a major victory for fish workers.
As September draws to a close, the likelihood diminishes that an economic partnership agreement (EPA) is achievable this year between the European Union and the Caribbean.
Ahead of the India-European Union (EU) summit on Nov 30, Daniele Smadja, the new envoy of the European Commission, Friday called for pushing negotiations on a broad-based trade and investment agreement between the two sides.
Mr. Kwasi Adu-Amankwah, Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress, said the leadership of organised labour had discussed the main issues of the EPA negotiations and concluded that the current efforts to negotiate a free and fair trade agreement between the world's single most powerful economic bloc and weaker economies was impossible.
Three weeks before the first round of negotiations on an Association Agreement between the EU and Central America to be held in Costa Rica at the end of October, Ms Ferrero-Waldner wishes to send a strong signal to the region of the importance the EU accords to this agreement.
