RP, EU to meet on cooperation deal
Business World | March 14, 2010
RP, EU to meet on cooperation deal
Jessica Anne D. Hermosa
THE PHILIPPINES will again be angling for easier commitments meant to facilitate trade with the European Union (EU) during meetings — scheduled to start this week — to forge a partnership cooperation agreement (PCA), a Trade official said.
Both will attempt to resolve sticking points which include how much the Philippines should improve Customs processing and the protection of intellectual property rights.
Talks for a free trade agreement (FTA) are not on the agenda.
The two delegations will be meeting for a fifth round of negotiations, this time in Brussels, from March 19 to 22.
"Among the nine sections the Trade department is in charge of, just two are still problematic: customs and trade facilitation and intellectual property rights protection. We want to calibrate the commitments and enforcement," Trade Assistant Secretary Antonio S. Buencamino said in a telephone interview.
"We just want to be realistic," he added.
Aside from the trade and investment pillar, the wide-ranging deal will also govern relations in two other areas: human rights and the rule of law — another earlier reported kink in the deal — and security.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Edsel T. Custodio has said there was difficulty with regard to the "human rights pillar" as the EU was looking to tie this to trade privileges.
Past meetings saw convergence in the areas of migration, the conduct of peace processes, data protection, and cooperation for employment, education, and the treatment of light weapons, among others.
The EU requires a PCA to be laid down before it forges a trade pact with a partner. The Philippines has yet to express interest in the EU’s invitation for such a deal even as neighbors Singapore and Vietnam have already begun negotiations with the Western economic bloc.
A side meeting on a trade agreement is not on the agenda for the PCA meeting, an EU official said.
"Negotiations in Brussels ... will be only about a PCA," said Gabriel Munuera Vinals, head of the economic, political and public affairs division of the EC delegation to the Philippines, in an e-mail to BusinessWorld.
"The Philippine Government has hitherto not requested to engage the EU bilaterally on FTA negotiations," Mr. Munuera added.
