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February 2008
What the
UK
Government must do now
The
Trade Justice Movement calls on the
UK
Government to:
-
Ensure
that the interim EPA texts are opened up for renegotiation, given
the haste in which they were concluded and their potential to
undermine development and regional integration.
-
Publicly
call for the European Commission to refrain from pushing for the inclusion
of services, investment, competition, government
procurement and intellectual property in EPAs. Given the lack of any
legal requirement to include them in EPAs and the controversy
surrounding the impacts on development of traditional rules-based
deals, the EC must let the ACP development concerns drive
negotiations – this means letting ACP negotiators take the lead,
adopting a more open-minded approach to any eventual cooperation on
these topics, and making publicly available external, objective
assessments of proposals and positions.
-
Push
for a strong and effective monitoring and review mechanism within
the EPAs that enables ACP countries and regions to assess whether
EPAs are contributing to their economic development and regional
integration and which builds in the legally enforceable right for
commitments to be revised in light of the findings.
-
Seek
to ensure pro-development alternatives for those countries that have
not signed an EPA.
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