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EC backs down on Pacific aid conditionality threat
3-Aug-2007
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.
Private sector urges restraint in signing EPA agreement
3-Aug-2007 Vanguard
Nigerian captains of commerce and industry have warned that the proposed trade agreements are not in the best interest of the growth of industry in the country.
African nations to sign parts of EU trade deal
2-Aug-2007 Reuters
The European Union and east African countries thrashing out a new but contentious trade deal will sign parts of it by a Dec. 31 deadline even if all is not ready by then, a Kenyan trade official said on Wednesday.
Pacific trade ministers protest EC aid threat in EPA talks
2-Aug-2007
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.”
EC threatens to withhold aid funds over EPA
2-Aug-2007
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.
Beware Europeans bearing gifts
1-Aug-2007 WNSC
After the emerging disaster of CAFTA, Central American countries recently launched into a new round of trade negotiations, this time with the European Union.
’EPA is terrorism act’
1-Aug-2007 GBF
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.”
Pacific Forum admits problems sealing a Economic Partnership Agreement
1-Aug-2007 Radio Fiji
The Pacific Forum has for the first time publicly admitted there have been problems in sealing an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union.
Multilateral still better than bilateral talks
1-Aug-2007 IPS
"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.
Kenya: Govt should be cautious in free trade negotiations
31-Jul-2007 Kenya Times
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.
Concluding the Economic Partnership Agreements: prospects and challenges for the Central Africa (CEMAC) regional negotiating group
26-Jul-2007
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 exporters losing out over EU’s protracted Free Trade Agreements with Gulf nations
26-Jul-2007 AME Info
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 position on the EU-Korea free-trade agreement
25-Jul-2007
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.
New rating poses threat to Kenya’s trade terms
24-Jul-2007 Business Daily Africa
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.
Africans fear ’ruin’ in Europe trade talks
24-Jul-2007 AllAfrica.com
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.
Fish exporters set conditions for EPAs
23-Jul-2007
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.
New trade deals: Africa to lose out as EU gains
23-Jul-2007
As Africa’s leaders met in Accra, Ghana, last week to consider ways of consolidating continental unity through increased trade, pertinent questions were being raised over the impact that a new trade arrangement between the European Union and the 75-member ACP trading bloc will have on regional integration.
EU demands greater access to South Korean agri market at FTA talks
23-Jul-2007 Asia Pulse
The EU claims there are considerable gaps between what Seoul is offering Brussels and what was agreed upon with Washington
CEMAC, whither to with EPAs?
21-Jul-2007
"These are not free trade agreements in the way anyone understand them. They are development tools, trade and Aid working together to deliver sustainable growth" Peter Mandelson, EU Trade Commissioner. The above is one of the high profiled empty speeches, characteristic feature of EU trade diplomacy. When Mandelson made the above speech, I came to the conclusion that I have witnessed the highest degree of hypocrisy since I came into this planet earth.
Korea-EU FTA talks see differences over IPR & cars
21-Jul-2007 Chosun Ilbo
Already, the EU has shunned Korea’s request to include goods made in the inter-Korean industrial park in North Korea’s border city of Kaeseong in their potential FTA and requested Korea to introduce a system in which cafes and restaurants pay royalties to music producers and performers.