EU trade: Mário David

The EU’s trade agreement with Colombia and Peru will guarantee human rights, labour rights and environmental sustainability and protection, writes Mário David.

Apart from the superb Inca civilisation, how much do we Europeans know about the reality of Colombia and Peru today? Mainly some preconceived ideas, such as the long standing armed conflict, the murders or the drug cartels, corruption, or environmental problems.

However, things are going in a good direction in recent years. Colombia’s GDP grew 4.3 per cent and 5.5 per cent and Peru grew 8.8 per cent and 5.7 per cent in the last two years. Living standards are improving and the governments in both countries are strongly committed to sustainable growth. The rule of law, and peace and democracy are becoming facts. Employment, with proper labour rights, is growing. Health and education are becoming a reality for more and more citizens.

Development commissioner Andris Piebalgs recently underlined that “Trade is the motor of Europe’s prosperity” and “the integration of developing countries in global trade is a powerful lever for growth and the fight against poverty. It has helped to lift millions of people out of poverty in the last decade and will remain key to our development work”.

It looks quite logical and rational that the EU and the two Andean countries have signed a free trade agreement. This agreement includes extensive provisions guaranteeing the protection of human rights, labour rights and environmental sustainability and protection.

The commission estimates that the total EU export benefits will be more than €270m a year in custom duties. Colombia and Peru are also expecting extremely positive impacts, of respectively, 1.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent GDP growth, especially in agriculture and processed agricultural goods, light industrial goods such as textiles, clothing and leather goods; heavy industrial goods and fisheries.

The agreement will dismantle 91 per cent of EU tariffs related to Colombian and Peruvian exports. Colombia and Peru also committed to opening the procurement of central and local authorities and together with the EU to ensure an effective level of protection of intellectual property rights including protection of more than 200 geographical indications of key interest for many SMEs in the EU.

Although the mutual benefits are undeniable, the agreement has been on the spot for non-trade/non-economic reasons. Its opponents insist on saying that the human rights protection, the democratic principles and the rule of law; the environmental standards, necessity of a sustainable development and protection of natural resources and the core labour standards as contained in the ILO conventions are not placed into practice by our counterparts, in particular by Colombia. There have been dramatic changes regarding these topics in recent years, not only by the approval of new laws, but also because of their effective enforcement.

Last 30 January, the EU and Colombia had their sixth meeting of the mechanism for dialogue on human rights. The EU highlighted the legislative and administrative reforms that the Colombian government is enacting to respect human rights, remedy past violations and prevent further incidents and will help providing support through technical and financial assistance to implement the new legislation on the law of victims and land restitution.

The meeting also covered issues such as women and children in situations of conflict, protection for human rights defenders and indigenous peoples, protection of union leaders and the military courts. A US congress report on Colombia also shows several advances regarding labour issues, law enforcement and declining violence against unionists. We will pay particular attention to the binding provisions of the agreement, which are conditional to its application. It could be no other way.

Mário David is parliament's rapporteur on the EU/Colombia/Peru trade agreement