ISDS Case Map
Pacific Islands / Pacific Forum
Pacific trade officials and legal experts have expressed their disappointment and deep concern at the draft text proposed by the European Commission for an Economic Partnership Agreement covering trade in goods, trade in services, fisheries, investment and development cooperation.
According to the organizers, this year's US-NZ Partnership Forum will in part focus on the, “potential for the United States and New Zealand to cooperate on ... economic development and sustainability in the Asia Pacific region.”
Pacific trade officials and legal experts from 14 Pacific Island nations have just spent 3 days examing Europe's draft agreement in detail and are deeply concerned about the text (audio)
This study was prompted by concern among some of the smaller Forum
Island Countries about the impact of the introduction of the Pacific
Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA) on their local economies and,
specifically, the impact of a reduction in tariffs on government revenues.
Samoa's Deputy Prime Minister said the Pacific trade ministers "have had some schooling and know how to read English. It is untrue that the Pacific misinterpreted the meaning (of the EC warning)."
This is the first time that members of the major business sector and representatives of private sector organisations from all 14 Pacific Forum Islands Countries will be coming together with regional ministers and senior policy officials to discuss major strategic business issues that face the region.
The EC's Head of Delegation to the Pacific has sent to the Pacific EPA negotiating team a letter dated Friday 3 August that states Pacific Trade Ministers have misinterpreted an earlier EC communication and there is no conditionality that would reduce the EDF funds available to the Pacific if the region does not sign an EPA.
Pacific Trade Ministers have responded to a threat by the EC to cut development aid funds to the region if the Pacific does not conclude the EPA by the end of the year. In a strongly worded letter to the EC Commissioner for Development, they stated they would “not accept the EC imposing this linkage on the RIP with respect to the EPA.”
Just before the Pacific ACP Trade Ministers Meeting opened in Vanuatu on 31 July 2007, the Deputy Head of the Pacific desk in the EC's DG Development sent the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat an email that stated the Pacific's allocation of the European Development Fund would be cut by 48% if it does not sign up to an EPA and by 26% if a goods-only agreement is concluded.
