At its plenary session on Wednesday 18 December, the European Parliament approved the accession of three developing island states to the Interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union and the Pacific States (see EUROPE 13537/27). It thus gives its consent to the Council of the EU to implement three proposed decisions during the first half of 2024.
The report by Dariusz Joński (EPP, Polish) on the accession of the Kingdom of Tonga received 545 votes in favour, while the reports on the accession of Niue and Tuvalu were approved by 543 and 533 MEPs respectively.
The interim EPA is a development-focused trade agreement that will offer Tonga, Niue and Tuvalu asymmetric access to the European market, allowing them to protect potentially fragile sectors in the event of liberalisation.
For the EU, the interim EPA will allow exporters of industrial products to these island states to be largely exempt from paying customs duties.
The EPA, ratified by the European Parliament in 2011, has been provisionally applied and includes the following Pacific countries: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands.
Link to Mr Joński’s reports on Tuvalu https://aeur.eu/f/evj ; Niue https://aeur.eu/f/evk; Tonga https://aeur.eu/f/evl (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit and Léa Marchal)