ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly

26-27 June 2007 in Wiesbaden, Germany

At the occasion of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) hosted by the German EU Presidency in Wiesbaden from 23-27 June 2007, PricewaterhouseCoopers officially released the “Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) of the Economic Partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and the ACP countries to the press.

The final report of the EU-ACP SIA was distributed to participants at the ACP-EU JPA and two members of the consortium obtained accreditation, attended the JPA sessions, seeking to actively to engage in dialogue and discussions with members of European and ACP parliaments.

Breakfast meeting for parliamentarians

In addition, GRET and PricewaterhouseCoopers, supported by several German NGOs, organised a breakfast meeting during the ACP-EU Joint Parliament Assembly to present the findings of the Sustainability Impact Assessment and to discuss the case of agriculture in West Africa.

The meeting was chaired by Carl Schlyter, Member of the European Parliament (Greens, Sweden) and co-president of the JPA committee on Economic Development, Finance and Trade and was attended a dozen participants, including parliamentarians and their staff, NGOs and other accredited experts.

The focus of the meeting was on the potential margin of manoeuvre to protect African agriculture in the context of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), with special emphasis on the case of West Africa (which was one of the regional sector studies conducted as part of the SIA).

Benoît Faucheux (GRET), speaking on behalf of the PricewaterhouseCoopers consortium presented key recommendations of the EU-ACP SIA related to sensitive products and safeguard measures and reported on the case study on the agro-industry in West Africa.

Thereafter, Francisco Mari of Evangelischen Entwicklungsdienstes – EED, a german faith based NGO, reported on a case study on EU-chicken dumping in West and Central Africa.

Questions raised during the subsequent discussion session related to the scenarios used for the SIA, the quantitative assessment of the economic and fiscal impacts of EPA in West Africa, as well as to the impact the SIA study had so far on the ongoing negotiations.

Related documents:

For more information on this workshop, contact: jochen.krimphoff@fr.pwc.com