The European Commission (EC) finally announced today that countries that have concluded an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) but not taken the necessary steps to ratify and implement it would no longer benefit from the EPA market access to Europe as from 1st January 2014. The EC Market Access Regulation (MAR) 1528 of 1st January 2008 provides duty free quota free market access for African Caribbean and Pacific countries that have concluded an EPA. The Regulation requires countries to sign, ratify and implement the Agreement within a “reasonable period of time”. At it currently stands, the ...
The European Union has been criticised for its slow response to the events that have unfolded in Tunisia and in Egypt in the first half of 2011. But it is catching up with the new SPRING programme - Support for Partnership, Reform and Inclusive Growth - which it adopted this week. The four pillars of the new package are: - A €350 million flagship initiative to support the political transition (the SPRING programme); - A Special Measure designed to support poorer areas in Tunisia to the value of €20 million; - Additional resources for higher ...
The European Commission has presented a proposal for a EU-wide financial transaction tax (FTT) to come into effect in 2014. Ostensibly to increase the tax contribution of financial services, to limit market volatility, and to avoid distortions on the internal market, the tax also aims at substantially raising EU revenues. Indeed, the EC’s proposal estimates that it will raise € 57 billion per year, more than the €53.8 billion spent on aid by the EU and its member states in 2010. So has the Tobin Tax’s time finally come? As one commentator puts it, “Tobin ...
In the field of foreign policy and external action, the promise of the European Union’s (EU) Lisbon Treaty was for a more integrated and coherent EU, with the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the European External Action Service (EEAS) at the helm. The EEAS has just published the EU Strategy for Security and Development in the Sahel region, and as it is one of the first integrated geographic strategies put forward under the new institutional setup, it might be read as an indicator for the future of EU ...
Although the question of how developing countries can improve domestic resource mobilisation (DRM) has never been off the agenda, the issue is increasingly the subject of renewed interest. This is the case both in developing countries, eager to increase their policy space and free themselves from the strings attached to donor aid, and in developed countries, forced to increasingly look for the best “value for money” at a time of spending cuts at home. There are a range of initiatives and conferences which place the issue of DRM at the centre of their reflections - ...
