Baroness Ashton welcomes European Parliament support for EPAs
The European Parliament has signalled its support for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Caribbean countries and the interim EPA with Côte d'Ivoire. Following the vote in the Parliament, EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton said: "I welcome the Parliament's vote on the Economic Partnership Agreements. It is an important political signal that the European Parliament has given its assent to the first examples of a new generation of agreements that safeguard the EU's special relationship with the ACP. I look forward to continuing the close cooperation with the Parliament on this issue, as well as on many others."
Speaking to the European Parliament, Commissioner Ashton had pledged that the new trade agreements with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries would serve development and offer developing countries the opportunity for advancement and growth. Commissioner Ashton promised that moving forward, EPAs would reflect and respect the different partners' needs and interests in a flexible manner. Above all, she stressed that she had no interest in agreements that made any country in the ACP worse off, dispelling some persistent myths that the EU was trying to unilaterally redefine the EU‐ACP relationship
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