Civil Society Dialogue

1
Civil Society Dialogue Economic Partnership
Agreements with African, Carribean, and Pacific
Countries EPAs and Trade Related Areas DG
Trade, European Commission Brussels, 18 May
2005

2
Selected issues by civil-society representatives

• EC brings in Singapore issues through the
  back-door and will reduce ACP policy-space
• ACP capacities not sufficient to negotiate
  trade-related issues
• EC approach is not transparent
• Access to medicines IPR consensus before Cancun
  will be offset by bilateral agreements (example
  US agreements)

3
EC key points

• Main objective is to develop trade-related
  issues in a S-S context
• Regional preference (eg. Gov. procurement or
  investment) including vis-à-vis EU is no problem
• S-N dimension can only be defined when the S-S
  approach is agreed example services

4
EC key points (continued)

• Capacity constraints are key-feature of EPAs -
  is being tackled through regional task forces
  capacity is a key requirement for implementation
• Transparency, including on trade-related issues,
  to be improved - regional level, all-ACP, in
  Europe
• Access to medicines no plans to go beyond TRIPS

5
Questions for further discussion

• How to tackle capacity constraints more
  meaningfully - relationship national and regional
  level?
• How to enhance transparency
• How to enter into more concrete discussions?
  progress in regional talks will help