Brussels, 23/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - The free market deals between the EU and Latin America (Colombia and Peru) and the EU and Central America are failing the social standards and environmental tests, warn civil society groups in both regions.
During debates at the European Parliament ahead of the ratification of the multipartite free trade agreement between the EU and Colombia and Peru, and EU association agreements between the EU and Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and El Salvador), initialled in March 2011, Latin American experts invited to speak by Latin American civil society networks OIDHACO, ALOP, CIFCA and Grupo Sur, along with European NGOs, warned on Thursday 22 March about the negative impact of the free trade deals in terms of social standards and the environment. They were particularly critical of expansion of the extractive industry and biofuel production, and how the two industries are affecting water and human rights.
Tatiana Rodríguez, coordinator of CENSAT Agua Viva - Amigos de la Tierra Colombia, fears that the mushrooming of mining, encouraged by free trade deals, will increase the concentration of land ownership in the hands of the few. Expansion of mining, a capital and equipment-intensive industry, does little to ease unemployment and has little or no connection with other productive activities. Alberto Alonso-Fradejas of an NGO and cooperatives' umbrella group in Guatemala, pointed out problems with farming and the expansion of oil palm and sugar cane farming for biofuels, which has taken off under the impact of the financial crisis, high fuel prices and environmental concerns, along with the EU Renewables Directive. In Guatemala, 29% of land is taken up by subsistence farming while in ten years, 20% of the tropical jungle has become oil palm plantations. Carlos Zepeda, author of “Eau pour la Vie ou pour le Commerce” is critical of the way the free trade deals ignore the human right to access water because they only see water as something to be traded, rather than as a common public good. Given the lack of any bodies or laws to guarantee the right to water, the poorest and most vulnerable communities of Latin America will suffer directly from the free trade deals.
MEPs Catherine Bearder (ALDE, UK), Jürgen Klute (GUE/NGL, Germany), Kriton Arsenis (S&D, Greece) and Andrés Perello (S&D, Spain) agreed to look further at the social and environmental problems that the free trade deals may generate in Latin America. (EH/transl.fl)