In depth

The Caribbean is focussing on the establishment and operationalisation of various EPA institutions at both the regional and national levels.

No reply had been received by mid-April 2009 from European Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton to a letter sent on 10 March 2009 from Hans Joachim Keil, Samoa Trade Minister and Pacific Leadspokespeson for EPA Negotiations. In the letter, Keil proposed to hold a Joint Technical Working

Traidcraft presents a map with updates about how Europe is negotiating EPAs with 76 countries across Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific. The map shows which countries are involved in EPAs and how negotiations are progressing.

Just before the convening of the European Parliament’s Committees on Trade (“INTA”) and Development (“DEVE”), EU CSOs send two EPA papers to the members of the two committees:

- a briefing paper introducing EPAs to the new Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) (Since the June 2009 European elections, 77% of the DEVE members and 60% of INTA members are new to these committees, and about 40% are new to the parliament)

- a discussion paper (“Criticial Issues in the EPA negotiations”) to re-launch the debate on EPAs among European decisionmakers after the June elections

was first initialled at the end of 2007. Fiji also initialled the Agreement in 2007 but decided to sign at a later stage. The agreement focuses on trade in goods and includes important provisions on rules of origin for the fisheries sector. The agreement was signed today by EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton on behalf of the European Commission, Mr Anders Ahnlid, Director General for Trade, on behalf of the Swedish Presidency of the EU and The Hon. Samuel Abal, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Immigration on behalf of Papua New Guinea.

28/08/2009 - A Mauritian socio-political movement, "Rezistans ek Alternativ", Friday asked the Mauritian government to stop the interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union, planned to be signed Saturday at Grand Baie. "We are asking the Mauritian government to call back the Parliament so that they discuss this document before this interim agreement is signed," said Messrs Roody Muneean and Ashok Subron, two leaders of the movement.

West African Heads of State and Government welcomed the progress made with the EPA negotiations in the areas of trade in goods and development cooperation related to the EPA at their meeting in Abuja on 22 June 2009.

Talks about the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and the West African region took place in Dakar (Senegal) from 16 to 23 July 2009. Participants in the technical and senior officials' meeting followed up on the Ministerial meeting which took place in Brussels in June. On that occasion, it was agreed that a regional deal on trade in goods, development cooperation and other trade-related rules will be concluded by the end of October 2009. In Dakar, negotiators made good progress on a number of areas including the EPA Development Programme (PAPED) and rules of origin.

2009-08-26 - Chief technical advisor to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Dr Moses Tekere has said the decision by some countries not to sign interim economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU) will undermine regional integration and cohesiveness in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region.

August 31st - COMMERCE minister Felix Mutati on Saturday refused to sign the interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union, saying Zambia will sign at a later date.