Philippines, EU can start implementing PCA
Business Mirror, Philippines
Philippines, EU can start implementing PCA
By Estrella Torres / Reporter
4 July 2010
The Philippines and the European Union (EU) can start implementing the Partnership Cooperation Agreement (PCA) that facilitates trade and investments and improve Filipino migration to Europe before ratification by the 27 EU member-states and the Philippines.
This was from a senior official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), who added that the framework agreements on human rights, trade and investments, as well as migration, are already being prepared for implementation.
The Philippines and the EU will form the Joint Committee Meeting panel to facilitate implementation of the PCA, which was initialed by both parties in Brussels in early June this year.
The senior diplomat said the Philippines intends to address key trade issues with the EU “head-on” before it elevates the negotiations to the comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) between the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (EU-Asean FTA).
The EU had proposed a comprehensive free-trade deal with Asean three years ago but pending that has shifted gears and has been negotiating FTAs with individual Asean member-nations. So far, the EU, considered as the world’s largest trading bloc, is negotiating a bilateral trade deal with Singapore.
Among the pressing issues between the EU and the Philippines include appeals to lift the EU ban on flying in euro zones on Philippine air carriers for failing to meet its standards and the lingering difficulty of local exporters to meet the EU sanitary and phytosanitary measures.
The EU body that reviews the ban on foreign airlines will meet sometime in November this year.
Meanwhile, trade activists urged the newly installed Aquino administration to reveal the provisions of the RP-EU PCA on worries it would be another trade deal detrimental to the plight of local traders, “as was the deal with Japan, the Jpepa [Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement].”
Joseph Purugganan, coordinator of the EU-Asean-FTA Campaign Network, said since the PCA paves the way for possible FTA with the EU, it “deserves full disclosure and consultation with the affected sectors of our society” and pointedly noted the PCA has been under negotiations since 2007, but the government has not disclosed its contents despite the group’s repeated requests.
Purugganan urged the Aquino administration to review free-trade deals entered into by the Arroyo government, including the PCA with the EU and Jpepa.
