ISDS Case Map
EU
European Union
The EU is doing almost everything possible, both legally and illegally, to get the EPA signed, according to Kwabena Okai Ofosuhene of the Abibimman Foundation in Ghana. “It is very unfortunate and sad that there are key elements within the ECOWAS Commission who are working secretly to enable the EU achieve this.”
The Pacific Forum has for the first time publicly admitted there have been problems in sealing an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union.
"When we try to negotiate as individual countries, we give the Europeans the ammunition to divide and discriminate against us", said Zimbabwe's Deputy Minister of Information and Publicity Bright Matonga.
To many sugarcane-dependent families in western Kenya, January 2008 will come with adverse consequences to livelihoods and life itself as Kenya joins more efficient sugar producers in the free market regimes of COMESA and EPA.
On Monday 16 July 2007, EU and CEMAC Negotiators met in Yaounde to advance on the EPA negotiations. On the sideline of the meeting was a public manifestation by CSOs of the region to rise public awareness and especially that of the EU Negotiators on the likely impacts on EPAs on the development prospects of the region.
UK businesses are increasingly likely to lose out to the US on valuable Gulf export opportunities because it is taking so long for the EU to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the region's key states, says Trowers & Hamlins, the international law firm.
BUSINESSEUROPE would like to see an agreement based on full coverage, full reciprocity and effective market access for industrial goods, ambitious services liberalisation of as many sectors as possible, strong rules to foster and protect investments, and strong rules on trade facilitation, competition and public procurement.
Kenya's terms of trade in the international market may change for the worse following its recent removal from the list of the world's Least Developed Countries, it has emerged.
African governments, policy analysts, regional economic groups and civil society organizations are increasingly speaking with one voice: the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) now being hammered out between Europe and the ACP countries must be significantly modified to safeguard those countries' prospects for development.
With barely five months to go before the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) come into force, it is still unclear whether agreements in the negotiations will be reached.
