Negotiation of an EU‑Andean Community agreement

7.5.2009

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3669/09
by Alain Lipietz (Verts/ALE) , Raül Romeva i Rueda (Verts/ALE) and Caroline Lucas (Verts/ALE)
to the Commission

The Commission has decided to abandon the negotiation of an association agreement with the four countries of the Andean Community, Bolivia's position on the subject of TRIPS being a significant factor in its thinking.

DG Trade is currently negotiating a multilateral trade agreement with Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, having stated that Bolivia, as the fourth member, does not wish to negotiate but has the option of coming on board should it change its mind. By contrast, the Commission is not negotiating on the other two areas that were pillars of the original project with a view to updating the 2003 agreement on cooperation and development — an agreement, incidentally, which is still not in force because Colombia has not ratified it — because, it says, one of the four countries is not prepared to take part. How does the Commission explain its use of the same argument, on the one hand, for pursuing negotiations on the trade pillar and, on the other, for abandoning negotiations on the remaining two pillars?

Would the Commission care to demonstrate some consistency in its approach by resuming simultaneous negotiations on all three pillars, or else, should one party decline to participate, by freezing all negotiations?

The financial crisis and the current threat of a pandemic prove the point that we shall be forced to overhaul the principles underpinning trade negotiations if we want to avoid unacceptable consequences and to introduce an economic and social system that puts people first. Has the Commission yet reviewed its demands in relation to financial services? Is it still pursuing demands designed to liberalise financial services and, if so, what are they? Is the Commission prepared to leave the whole matter of financial services off the agenda in its negotiations with the Andean countries until regulatory measures are in place covering all the players, centres and products concerned? Is it further prepared to drop all patent-related demands that go beyond the spirit and letter of the 2001 Doha Declaration, ratified by the World Health Assembly in 2008, and to remove patents on medicines, as requested by the association of producers of generic medicines in Colombia? What are its proposals on low-cost technology transfer? Given that the Andean Community does not have a customs union, does the Commission accept the existence of a range of customs regimes designed to assist industrial diversification and to promote family farming and food sovereignty?

OJ C 189, 13/07/2010