EXCLUSIVE: Landmark PHL-EU pact up

THE Philippines and the Euro-pean Union (EU) are expected to sign the landmark Partnership Cooperation Agreement (PCA) next month at the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Regional Forum in Phnom Penh. The agreement is expected to move forward negotiations for a free-trade agreement (FTA) that will facilitate trade and investments and give Philippine businesses greater market access to rich European countries.

The PCA covers broader areas, among them trade and investments, peace and security and migration and development.

Ambassador Guy Ledoux, head of the EU delegation to the Philippines, told the BusinessMirror on Wednesday that High Representative Catherine Ashton of the EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario will sign the PCA on July 11.

The Asean Regional Forum, to be held mid-July in the capital of Cambodia, gathers Asean member-countries and their dialogue partners such as the EU, the United States, China and Russia. The meeting tackles political and regional security and will likely discuss the current standoff between the Philippines and China over Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Asean groups the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Ledoux said the PCA also covers political dialogue on wide ranging issues such as cooperation in combating terrorism, supporting nuclear nonproliferation, promoting human rights, sustaining the environment and stopping money-laundering.

“The PCA is a prerequisite for the FTA with EU,” Ledoux said at the sidelines of the launch of the local governance watch program with the Department of Interior and Local Government held at Gateway Suites in Quezon City.

He added that EU is negotiating free-trade deals with Asean, two member-countries of which, Malaysia and Singapore, have not signed similar PCA agreements with the European Union.

“The step I should say is already made [toward negotiating an FTA between the Philippines and EU],” Ledoux said.

Negotiations for the PCA between the Philippines and EU started in 2006 and dragged for many years, partly due to Philippine reluctance to commit to the ratification of the 1995 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Manila cited concerns of the military and the police that they would be facing harassment suits in connection with their fight against terrorism and Marxist rebellion.

The PCA was initialed for signing in Brussels in 2010 by then-Philippine Ambassador to the European Union, Enrique Manalo, and James Moran of the External Relations Directorate General of EU after the Philippines agreed to honor a PCA clause: “We recognize that the most heinous crimes of international concern must not go unpunished.” The previous clause sought commitment from the Philippines to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC.

Manila eventually signed in August 2011 the Rome Statute of the ICC, which tries genocide and other crimes against humanity.

The PCA replaces an “outmoded and insufficient” bilateral agreement between the Philippines and EU signed in 1980. It is also the first political agreement to be signed by the European Union as a regional bloc of 27 member-economies.

EU originally proposed in 2007 a comprehensive FTA with Asean but later decided to negotiate bilateral PCAs only with the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia. –ESTRELLA TORRES / REPORTER, Businessmirror