On the sidelines of the round of talks for an EU-Indonesia free trade agreement in Brussels this week, the NGO Friends of the Earth Europe published a report on Tuesday 10 July, criticising the gulf that exists between the negotiated agreement and the objectives of the EU's trade policy on sustainability.
Criticising their lack of transparency, Friends of the Earth speaks out against the shortfalls in the ongoing negotiations, which, it says, aim "to put profits before people" and "to grant unjustified privileges to businesses while harming local economies and small farmers".
According to its analysis of the negotiation texts on the table to assess how much the draft agreement would support a fair and balanced economy, the 'sustainability check' of the agreement is shown to be a failure as it only obtains 4.5 points out of 20 (https://goo.gl/FgUV3B ).
Among its main criticisms, Friends of the Earth singles out the fact that the agreement will favour the trade of harmful products like palm oil – "one of the main drivers of the human rights violations and deforestation in Indonesia".
The NGO also criticises the system provided for to arbitrate in investment disputes, which, it says, is "a version of the very controversial ISDS model that would enable foreign investors to sue governments for unlimited amounts of compensation".
In addition, it considers that the agreement will prioritise an increase in trade flows to the detriment of binding rules on human rights and the environment. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)