Ashton Welcomes European Parliament Support For EPAs

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

27 March 2009

European Trade Commission Catherine Ashton has welcomed a European Parliament vote in support of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Caribbean countries and the interim EPA with the Ivory Coast.

Speaking to the European Parliament on Monday, Ashton pledged that the new trade agreements with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries would serve development and offer developing countries the opportunity for advancement and growth.

"It is an important political signal that the European Parliament has given its assent to the first examples of a new generation of agreements that safeguard the EU's special relationship with the ACP," Ashton commented after the vote. "I look forward to continuing the close cooperation with the Parliament on this issue, as well as on many others."

Ashton stressed that she had no interest in agreements that made any country in the ACP worse off, dispelling some persistent myths that the EU was trying to unilaterally redefine the EU-ACP relationship.

"By simplifying trade rules and replacing the complex maze of bilateral agreements with a small number of region-to-region trade relationships, the ACP can create bigger regional markets that are more attractive to the investment which developing markets need in order to create jobs and growth. I believe we have made some real progress on this front," she told MEPs.

Thirteen of the 15 member states of the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) and the European Community signed the EPA in October 2008.

The EPA negotiations were concluded in December 2007 when, after years of difficult negotiations, Peter Mandelson, then EU Trade Commissioner, finally secured the adoption of a ruling which brought into effect the agreements with ACP member countries, giving them free access to the member states of the EU for their goods exports, in return for opening their own markets to the EU after transition periods of up to 25 years.

The coverage of goods liberalised by CARIFORUM countries under the Agreement amounts to 61.1% of CARIFORUM imports from the EU in value over 10 years, 82.7% over 15 years (84.7% of tariff lines) and 86.9% over 25 years (90.2% of tariff lines). For all products originating in CARIFORUM countries and exported to the EU (other than rice and sugar), the Agreement has brought about a Duty and Quota Free Access regime as from January 1, 2008. This is a major improvement compared to the preferential treatment granted under the Cotonou Agreement for some agricultural products, in particular for bananas.

CARIFORUM consists of Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

"These agreements are based on a genuine partnership rather than paternalism, and harness trade as the motor of development," said Ashton. "They promote and encourage the regional integration that will help ACP countries to prosper in a globalized world."

"They are the right agreements at the right time," she added, concluding: "And I hope that from now on it goes without saying that they are most certainly not designed to make anyone poorer."

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