European Commission endorses the EU-ACP Sustainability Impact Assessment and releases position paper on PricewaterhouseCoopers’ recommendations
16 November 2007, Brussels, Belgium
The European Commission (EC) released a position paper on the recommendations made by PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) of the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA).
The EC position paper concludes in its general remarks that throughout the EPA negotiations the SIA has provided detailed analyses of various scenarios and advised on their potential positive and negative economic, environmental and social Occasionally, there have been problems with the SIA, mainly due to misunderstandings concerning the contents and direction of the negotiations, which resulted in outputs of limited use to negotiators. But overall the analyses and recommendations produced by the consortium have been useful, not just for Commission Services, but also for a wide range of other stakeholders. Commission Services have taken into account the findings of the SIA, including through detailed assessments of the reports, regular contacts with the consortium and participation in the consultation of external stakeholders concerning the SIA. Commission Services can therefore provide overall endorsement of the SIA.’
Furthermore, the position paper recalls the context and objectives of the SIA and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the SIA. Finally, it provides the EC position on each of the 12 recommendation made by PricewaterhouseCoopers and explains how they have been taken into account in the EU-ACP trade negotiations.
The full text of the position paper is available for Download:
2007-11-EC-position paper -tradoc_136958.pdf
A summary of the SIA and all reports produced for this SIA can be downloaded from this website (click on the each cover page on the right) or from the European Commission’s SIA website:
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/issues/global/sia/studies_geo.htm#acp
Background documents and information about the current state of play of the EU-ACP EPA negotiations can be found at the Commission's website:
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/issues/bilateral/regions/acp/index_en.htm
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Horticulture in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) -
Rules of Origin in the Southern African Development Community Group (SADC Group) -
Financial Services in Central Africa -
Agro-industry in West Africa, Tourism services in the Caribbean & Fisheries in the Pacific -
Caribbean workshop on building sustainable development issues into Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) -
Central African workshop on building sustainable development issues into Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA)
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Summary of key findings, policy recommendations and lessons learned.
Executive summary -
SIA - flyer