On Wednesday 10 September in Strasbourg, MEPs approved (528 votes in favour, 89 against and 48 abstentions) Vanuatu’s accession to the Pacific States Interim Partnership Agreement between the EU, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, as an asymmetrical trade agreement compatible with WTO rules.
In an explanatory note, rapporteur Dariusz Joński (EPP, Polish) points out that following Vanuatu’s classification by the World Bank as an ‘upper-middle income country’, it will be removed from the list of countries benefiting from the Everything But Arms (EBA) programme under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP). It will therefore no longer benefit from the tariff preferences provided under the special EBA scheme for least developed countries.
To see the approval: https://aeur.eu/f/icw (PLD)