ACP ministers review the EPA negotiations
Citation
CTA. 2003. ACP ministers review the EPA negotiations. Agritrade, September 2003. CTA, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Permanent link to cite or share this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/52621
External link to download this item: http://agritrade.cta.int/Back-issues/Agriculture-monthly-news-update/2003/September-2003
Abstract/Description
At their meeting
on July 31st and August 1st...
Notes
At their meeting
on July 31st and August 1st 2003 ACP trade ministers reiterated:
their commitment to ending the phase 1 negotiations
with a binding agreement;
the need to address issues of common concern
under phase 1; ·
the need for additional resources, and improvement
of EDF disbursement procedures; ·
the need for a modification of WTO rules
to allow flexibility in the negotiation of EPAs; ·
the need for ACP indebtedness to be addressed
within the EPA negotiations.
However, ACP Ministers also acknowledged that
ACP regions and states which felt that they were in a position to
do so, could commence phase 2 negotiations in September 2003.
With regard to the reform of the CAP ACP ministers
called for studies to be urgently undertaken on a product-by-product
basis on the production and trade implications of CAP reform and
on the impact of CAP reform on net-food-importing ACP countries.
ACP Ministers also gave support to the West
and Central African initiative around cotton and called for compensatory
mechanisms to be set in place for ACP countries which suffer income
losses as a result of CAP reform.
Comment:
The endorsement of a start to phase 2 negotiations, should some
members wish it, even before phase 1 has been concluded, means that
issues of common concern would have to be addressed in parallel
with the conduct of phase 2 negotiations. This is likely to give
the European Commission little incentive to address the substantive
issues raised under phase 1, given that the Commission was always
sceptical about the value of phase 1 negotiations.
Organizations Affiliated to the Authors
Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural CooperationCollections
- CTA Agritrade [1158]