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Latin America’s free trade agreements with the European Union - An agenda for domination
21-Aug-2008 GRAIN
The EU is currently negotiating FTAs with Central America, the Andean Community of Nations and Mercosur. Its objective is to use these agreements to complete the privatisation process, to remove restrictions on European property and activity in the region, to acquire full access to natural resources and to obtain guarantees that European companies will be able to operate with clear advantages over national companies. Moreover, all these concessions granted to European companies are to be protected from any political changes that the peoples of the region might want to undertake in the future.
GCC criticises EU for delaying free trade deal
21-Aug-2008 Zawya
Gulf oil producers have criticised the European Union (EU) for delaying the signing of a landmark free trade agreement (FTA) that could support their long-standing bid to diversify their oil-reliant economies.
EU is delaying EPA negotiation process - TWN
20-Aug-2008
Mr. Gyekye Tanoh, an official of the Third World Network (TWN), a civil society organization, on Wednesday blamed delays in the Economic Partnership Agreements process on the European Union (EU) saying they were manipulating the negotiation process to suit them.
EPAs: The new game of divide and rule
20-Aug-2008 LaRRI
It will be critical in the coming months to mobilise resistance to the implementation of the Interim EPA in its current format and thereby strengthen the Namibian Government’s hand not to sign a final EPA with the EU. Namibia should also link up with African and international campaigns against EPAs, which have emerged in the past few years. The battle is not lost but there is little time left to prevent EPAs from becoming a new and powerful tool to promote EU interests at the expense of Africa’s development needs. A new publication from the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI).
St Lucia concern about EPA
20-Aug-2008 Radio Jamaica
St Lucia’s Prime Minister, Stephenson King says his country wants concerns addressed about the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) the region has negotiated with the European Union.
‘‘An injury to one market is an injury to all’’
19-Aug-2008 IPS
Southern African non-governmental organisations have put forward demands to their governments in resistance to the continuing talks on economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states.
What lies beneath EU-GCC alliance?
19-Aug-2008 Gulfnews
How important is the trade agreement for GCC? And who will benefit more: EU or GCC?
Fears at talks as Europe pushes for free trade in services
18-Aug-2008 AllAfrica.com
Transnational corporations could be granted unfettered access to Kenya’s banking and telecommunications sectors if trade talks taking place in Antananarivo, Madagascar, favour Europe.
Where’s the partnership between Europe and the Caribbean?
17-Aug-2008 Huntington News
On Sept. 2, 2008, some Caribbean countries will be signing an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union which is not fair and which, over time, may well return Caribbean countries to a state of “plantation economies” where the commanding heights are owned by foreign companies run by expatriate managers, and Caribbean people are merely workers.
Cameroon regrets economic agreement with EU Commission
15-Aug-2008 Africa News
In what looks like crying over spilt milk, Cameroon’s economic experts are spending sleepless nights seriously reflecting on the budgetary impact of the economic partnership agreement, EPA signed with the European Commission last December.
Uruguay: After Doha, FTA with the EU and NAFTA fails once again
13-Aug-2008 Radio Mundo Real
Trade agreements with big blocs like the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or with the European Union have experienced a recent boost in Uruguay.
EU Parliament head discusses EU-Syria pact with Syrian president
13-Aug-2008 EJP
The President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, discussed the future signature of a EU-Syria Association Agreement, during a meeting on Sunday in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
Caricom hopes to renegotiate EPA
13-Aug-2008 Jamaica Observer
Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries will sign the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe on September 2 as planned, but they are still hoping to renegotiate the deal afterwards, Caricom Chairman Baldwin Spencer has said.
‘EU is getting flexible on EPAs’
13-Aug-2008 New Era
Namibia is ready to put behind the unpleasant treatment it received from European Union negotiators during last year’s marathon negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), which resulted in the country’s refusal to sign until its protests were heard.
Overfishing linked to food crisis, migration
12-Aug-2008 AllAfrica.com
According to a recent report by the nongovernmental organisation ActionAid, West African seas are being devastated by legal and illegal overfishing, while local fishing industries decline. Moreover, the economic partnership agreements in their currently proposed form only exacerbate this problem.
Guyanese Government to host public EPA consultations
12-Aug-2008 Barbados Advocate
Weeks ago President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, announced his scepticism on signing the Economic Partnership Agreement trade deal with the European Community. Now it has been revealed that the Guyanese government will be hosting public consultations on the proposed arrangement come the beginning of September.
Human rights, rule of law sticky issues in RP-EU pact
12-Aug-2008 Business Mirror
THE Philippines is seeking to settle sticky issues in the proposed partnership cooperation agreement (PCA) with the European Union which include government’s commitments to uphold human rights and rule of law in the country before the Asia Europe Meeting (Asem) Summit in Beijing in October this year.
’Bad deal’
9-Aug-2008
They failed us! That’s what governments, intellectuals and trade unions in CARIFORUM (CARICOM and the Dominican Republic) who negotiated the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union did to this region, says James Paul, of the Barbados Agricultural Society.
Viewpoint: Labour mobility deals
9-Aug-2008 Islands Business
Under pressure to sign on to new free trade agreements, Pacific Islands governments interested in securing positive outcomes for their peoples see deals on labour mobility as potential development gains. But is this the right approach? And what are the potential costs?
JCTU urges gov’t to postpone EPA signing
8-Aug-2008 Go-Jamaica
The Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions has joined in the call for the government to postpone signing the Economic Partnership Agreement recently negotiated with the European Union.