Issues reduced but RP-EU talks still unfinished
Business World | February 08, 2010
Issues reduced but RP-EU talks still unfinished
NEGOTIATIONS for a framework agreement that will guide relations between the Philippines and the European Union remain unfinished even as delegations from both sides met for a fourth time last week.
The two plan to meet again in March in Brussels to resolve "remaining issues" that are holding up the Partnership Cooperation Agreement (PCA), they said in a joint statement yesterday.
The PCA will be a wide-ranging deal that will govern the relationship of the two territories in following areas: trade and development, human rights and the rule of law, and security. This deal must first be laid down before a free trade pact can be brokered.
Representatives met in Manila for the fourth time last February 4-5 and forged agreements to cooperate the following areas: "combating illicit drugs, employment and social affairs, data protection, education, culture and inter-cultural and interfaith dialogue, development cooperation, statistics, and small arms and light weapons."
This is on top of the convergence attained in earlier meetings, particularly in the areas of migration and the conduct of peace processes, among others.
But the statement was mum on an earlier sticking point: a common standard for protecting human rights.
Earlier, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Edsel T. Custodio had said they were facing difficulty with regard to the "human rights pillar" as the EU was looking to tie this to trade privileges.
For James Moran, the European Commission’s external affairs department’s director for Asia, the fourth round of talks "made a great deal of progress."
"It reflected the shared intention of both the EU and the Philippines to strengthen our relations through the intensified cooperation which the PCA will make possible," Mr. Moran said in the joint statement.
"Both sides expressed the desire to have a signing of the said agreement at the earliest opportunity," the statement read further.
In the region, a PCA has been signed with Indonesia, negotiations are quite advanced with Thailand and Singapore, and ongoing with Vietnam, according to earlier reports. — Jessica Anne D. Hermosa
