The Trade Committee in the European Parliament voted in favour to extend the 2014 deadline proposed by the Commission and give ACP countries until 2016 to ratify their Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) before withdrawing their free access to the EU market.

MEPs at the Trade Committee in the European Parliament called on the European Commission to give struggling African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries two more years for negotiations on their Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). If the agreements are not ratified in time, they will lose the right to duty-and-quota-free access to the EU that they have been enjoying since 2007. The first Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and an Africa region started to be applied in May 2012.

In particular, the countries are Botswana and Namibia plus six poorer countries, namely Cameroon, Fiji, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Swaziland. MEPs highlighted that these countries are still grappling with development needs and poverty and would be hit by sharply reduced access to EU markets and therefore need until 2016 to prepare for the EPAs.

Under the Market Access Regulation, 36 ACP countries have been able to access EU markets freely since 2007, even though they were not ready to apply the EPAs in full and ratify them. Today, a number of them have still not taken the steps needed to ratify their EPAs. The Commission therefore wants to switch eight of them -the above referred, less advantageous, preference schemes.