While governments and the corporate sector are pushing for a free trade agreement between the EU and ASEAN, peoples’ movements and civil society organizations from across Southeast Asia have expressed their strong opposition to the trade deal.
The ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples Forum came out with statement criticizing ASEAN’s pursuit of FTAs. The statement reads "While ASEAN recognizes the development asymmetries that exist in the region and the urgent need to narrow the development gap to ensure that economic benefits are felt by the poorest and marginalized sectors, its continued and aggressive push for free trade agreements (FTAs) negotiated in almost total secrecy and devoid of people’s participation, poses a very serious threat to people’s rights to jobs and livelihood, food, health and access to medicines and education, and would undermine efforts to address poverty and inequality in the region."
Various trade and health groups campaigning against the EU FTAs with ASEAN also issued an open letter calling on ASEAN leaders to defend peoples right to health and guarantee access to affordable medicines. According to the group, "the future supply of life-saving medicines is under threat from aggressive trade policies being imposed on developing countries in particular by the European Union and United States of America.
The group zeroed in on the EU adding "the EU’s demand for stricter intellectual property right(IPR) provisions under the FTA will seriously curtail the ability of local generic drug companies to produce and distribute more affordable versions of these life-saving medicines. Restrictive IPR provisions will have profound effects on costs of medicines and medical treatment in the region."
There is no doubt that corporations from EU and ASEAN are just eager to conclude an ambitious and comprehensive trade and invesmten deal between the two regions. The importance given to the EU-ASEAN Business summit in Jakarta attest to this. There is growing indication as well that ASEAN governments are more than willing to engage the EU in FTA negotiations either on a bilateral or region to region basis. The critical question however is whether governments will listen to the demands of its own people.
26-May-2011
El arancel para la Harina de pescado es del 15%, no del 20%, serìa solo importante verificarlo!
Josè Raùl