CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement

9.2.2009

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0989/09
by Madeleine Jouye de Grandmaison (GUE/NGL) , Paulo Casaca (PSE) , Fernando Fernández Martín (PPE‑DE) , Alain Hutchinson (PSE) , Catherine Neris (PSE) and Margie Sudre (PPE‑DE)
to the Commission

Can the Commission assure the European Parliament that the Caribbean countries' development objectives and, ultimately, the achievement in practice of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by the year 2015 (which objectives have been approved by all the Member States) are addressed and taken into account in the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between CARIFORUM and the European Union (EU)?

Bearing in mind that the mandate laid down by the Council for the negotiation of EPAs (and, in particular, the paragraph relating more specifically to the outermost regions), the EU's strategy for the Caribbean and the EU's strategy for the outermost regions all explicitly state the need for regional integration of the outermost regions within CARIFORUM and the establishment of an interregional market between the those regions and CARIFORUM, can the Commission explain to the European Parliament in detail why the twin objectives of regional integration of the EU's outermost regions and the establishment of an interregional market between the outermost regions and CARIFORUM were not negotiated, addressed or taken into account in the course of the negotiations on the Economic Partnership Agreement?

OJ C 189, 13/07/2010