Trade Negotiations Insights

Volume 9 • Number 2 February 2010

  • Coordinating EU trade and development policy-making in a new context
    The recently enforced Lisbon Treaty bears the promise of improving the consistency of the EU’s external policies, including trade and development. It is a most challenging task - as illustrated by the EPA and Aid for Trade processes - which call for the streamlining of both Community and member states’ policies. Achieving a whole-of-the-Union approach…
  • Editorial
    Change is a theme running through the pages of Trade Negotiations Insights this month. Particularly change in Brussels, where a new Commission is setting up office under the banner of the freshly ratified Lisbon Treaty. High expectations have been placed upon these personalities in the Commission and the innovations introduced in the Treaty. What are the…
  • News and Publications
    Farm subsidies grow in the EU as debate over the future of CAP heats up New subsidy figures reported to the WTO show a sharp increase in the EU’s agricultural subsidies, to over €90 billion in the 2006-07 marketing year - levels not seen since the previous decade. However, the most trade-distorting payments, classed as…
  • Creating a pro-development EU trade policy in a post-preference world
    The European Union (EU) is losing the faculties with which it has created an integrated trade and development policy. But these can be regenerated: aspects of current policy can be reinforced whilst they still have some vigour and new tools, rooted in EU-level policies, can be provided. Yet time is of the essence. Unless…
  • Aid for Trade - an opportunity for re-thinking aid for economic growth
    Aid for Trade (AfT) is a relatively new concept encompassing a number of activities supporting the ability of developing countries to engage in trade. While these activities have been carried out individually by donors for decades, the new elements brought in by the AfT initiative are bundling them under a common roof and embedding…
  • The Vulnerability-Flex Mechanism: A success story?
    Last December, the European Commission (EC) approved the first financing decisions in favour of thirteen African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, which are to benefit from a total of €215 million under the €500 million ad hoc Vulnerability-FLEX mechanism (V-FLEX). Initially proposed by the EC in April 2009, approved by EU Member States in July,…
  • EU support to regional integration in Africa: A shared vision
    Motivated by its own experience over the past fifty years, the European Union (EU) has been a long-standing supporter of regional integration throughout the world, including in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries where there has been a steady expansion, in both depth and breadth, of regional integration initiatives. While the…
  • WTO Roundup
    WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy announced on 22 February that trade ministers will not be gathering in Geneva at the end of March for a stock-taking meeting. Rather, the meeting, called for by the G-20 in September, will involve senior officials. The announcement comes amidst frustration among delegates at the slow pace of the talks. The negotiating…
  • EPA Update
    New EU Trade Commissioner to detail EPA approach in coming weeks Karel De Gucht assumed office as the new EU Trade Commissioner on 9 February following a confirmation vote by the European Parliament[i]. ACP governments are pleased to have a political counterpart to help move the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations forward. For the past…
  • Events
    March 1 New ACP Secretary General to take up office 1-2 SADC-EU EPA information seminar, Maputo, Mozambique 4 AUC, AfDB, WB, UNECA, EC, DFID and the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa meeting on Regional Economic Integration in Africa: “Joining up Africa”, London, UK 8-1 Special meeting of the ACP-EC Council of Ministers on the 2nd revision of the Cotonou Agreement,…
  • Resources
    All references are available at: www.acp-eu-trade.org/library State of play of the ACP Economic Partnership Agreements, European Commission DG Trade. 5 February 2010, trade.ec.europa.eu Ongoing EU bilateral and regional negotiations, European Commission DG Trade, 5 February 2010, trade.ec.europa.eu The list of the existing EC regional trade agreements, European Commission DG Trade, 5 February 2010,…