Brussels, 13/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - A little flexibility - that is what the European Parliament asked of the European Commission when it called on it, in Strasbourg on Thursday 13 September, to grant struggling ACP (African/Caribbean/Pacific) countries a grace period for negotiating an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the EU. Those countries will therefore have two more years for ratifying that progressive and asymmetrical trade liberalisation agreement before the decision is taken to withdraw their free access to the EU market.
In line with its rapporteur, David Martin (S&D, UK), the Parliament advocated that the deadline of 1 January 2014 proposed by the Commission for withdrawing duty-and-quota-free access to the EU market from ACPs that have not signed or ratified an EPA should be extended to 2016. ACPs have enjoyed this access since 2007 under the regulation on market access (Regulation 1528/2007). This call for understanding was launched on the occasion of the vote in first reading on the proposal amending Annex I of the regulation with a view to excluding a number of countries from the list of regions or States that have completed the talks. Currently, 17 ACP countries have not yet completed ratification of an EPA but continue to benefit from unlimited preferential access to the European market.
After the vote, Martin said he was pleased that the more progressive members of the assembly had managed to beat the conservatives in amending the Commission's proposal. He said the timetable was realistic for working to obtain EPAs focusing on development with the African, Caribbean and Pacific partners, and that some countries in the Caribbean and Pacific have already signed, if not ratified the EPAs, but that there are still outstanding questions to be resolved with most of the African countries. He went on to add that “no ACP country should be forced to sign an unsatisfactory EPA”. Some African countries perceive the Commission's sense of urgency as pressure on them to accept partnership agreements that they do not feel are satisfactory.
The leaders of the Pacific region spoke along the same lines at their recent summit end August, in Rarotonga, when they vented their frustration and called on the EU to be more receptive to the requests of its partners concerning market access (see EUROPE 10681).
The regulation on access to the market concerns the 36 ACP countries that initialled EPAs at the end of 2007, the deadline set by the WTO for concluding EPAs. Adoption of the regulation was a transitional solution for the countries that were not yet able to apply the EPAs pending ratification. (AN/transl.jl)