EU and ACP to work together in Cancun

The EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy met with ACP Trade Ministers on July 31st 2003 and agreed to work with the ACP in Cancun to: 'ensure that the DDA [Doha Development Agenda] maintains a fair and important level of preferences for industrial and agricultural products for ACP countries and that trade opening takes place in a gradual and flexible manner'; secure an 'urgent solution to the issue of access to medicines for countries with no manufacturing capacity in accordance with the Doha mandate'; 'establish rules giving developing countries special and differential treatment to help them better integrate into the world trading system'; support accession to the WTO of least developed countries, most of which are ACP countries. The importance of trade-related assistance was also emphasised. Comment: It remains to be seen whether these commitments will be translated into joint ACP-EU action to secure a revision of WTO rules on free-trade-area agreements. Revisions are needed in order to allow greater flexibility in the degree of reciprocity which developing and least developed countries must introduce in any free-trade-area arrangement with developed economies and this remains a vitally important issue in the ACP-EU EPA negotiations.The EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy met with..