European Parliament resolution of 20 January 2010 on the second revision of the ACP-EC Partnership Agreement (the "Cotonou Agreement")
This resolution comprises, among others, the following paragraphs:
"11. Considers it necessary, firstly in view of the entry into force of the EPAs for certain ACP countries only and secondly because various provisions of Article 37 of the Cotonou Agreement are out of date, to revise the part of the ACP-EU agreement concerning trade agreements in order to incorporate provisions concerning all the existing ACP-EU trade arrangements (Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), GSP plus, interim EPAs, EPAs with the Caribbean Forum of ACP States (Cariforum) countries) and to uphold a number of principles and commitments which should not be lost from the Agreement, namely:
– consistency between, on the one hand, all the trade frameworks governing relations between the ACP and EU countries and, on the other hand, the development objectives which are at the heart of ACP-EU cooperation,
– the guarantee that all the ACP countries will have the benefit of a trade framework which is at least equivalent to their previous situation, particularly for countries which are not Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and are not signatories to an EPA,
– the guarantee that, for all the ACP countries, the new trade framework will take account of sensitive sectors, particularly agricultural food production, when determining transition periods and the final product coverage, and that it will make it possible to improve the market access which ACP countries enjoy, particularly by means of a review of the origin rules;
12. Notes that, in their notification letters, the parties to the Cotonou Agreement explicitly ask for the revision of trade provisions; points out that new provisions need to be added in new areas, such as Aid for Trade in order to guarantee the development dimension in the trade areas of that Agreement;
13. Welcomes the request by the ACP countries for new provisions regarding cooperation in the following areas: trade and development, trade and finance, fair trade, and notes their request on trade in arms;
Author(s):