EU-RP pact initialed

MANILA, Philippines—After about 18 months of negotiations, the European Union and the Philippines’ Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) was initialed in Brussels Friday, June 25, the EU Delegation here said in a news release.

The formal signature of the agreement will follow later this year, after the “necessary procedures have been completed on both sides,” including the translation of the document to the other official EU languages. Negotiations ended June 3 this year.

The agreement provides the legal basis for both parties to cooperate in a wide range of areas:

* on political matters, including on peace process and conflict prevention, on human rights, and on regional and global security issues, such as non-proliferation

* on trade and investment, including investment, SPS, TBT, customs and trade facilitation, as well as IPR

* on justice and security, including the fight against drugs, money-laundering, organized crime, and corruption

* on migration, including protection, admission, readmission, migration and development, and the fight against trafficking and on maritime labor, education and training

* and on a wide range of economic, development and sectoral issues, including employment and social affairs, development cooperation, disaster risk management, energy, environment, agriculture, regional development, transport, science, ICT, tourism, health, education

“The PCA is not a free-trade agreement. While it enhances cooperation in various trade matters it does not include specific trade concessions by either party. However, should the EU and Philippines decide to negotiate an FTA, the PCA would facilitate its conclusion,” the EU said.

Philippine Ambassador to the EU Enrique Manalo and the European Commission’s Asia Director James Moran initialed the document.

Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy as well as Vice-President of the European Commission, welcomed the initialing of the agreement.

“The PCA is the first-ever bilateral and comprehensive agreement between the two parties. The agreement will give us a framework which is fit-for-purpose for the 21st Century. It will strengthen considerably our dialogue, cooperation and action across the whole spectrum of EU-Philippine relations, specifically in the political domain, on trade and investment, justice and security, migration as well as on economic and development issues,” she said.

For the past 30 years, the relationship between the Philippines and the EU had been governed by the EEC-Asean Cooperation Agreement of 1980. She noted also that the Philippines is now the second Asean country to complete negotiations for a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the EU, following the signature of the PCA with Indonesia in November 2009. Negotiations are underway with Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore.

In 2004, the EU decided to upgrade its relationship with Asean countries through PCAs. At the margins of the Asia-Europe Meeting Summits in Helsinki in September 2006 and in Beijing in October 2008, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo agreed to update the legal framework for the EU-Philippine relations. Formal negotiations started in Manila in February 2009. They were concluded at the seventh round of negotiations, held in Brussels on 2-3 June. –V. Uy, INQUIRER.net