THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION (EC) is facing opposition in the European Parliament over the way it is negotiating new economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP).

The 173-member Party of European Socialists – the European Parliament's second-largest political grouping – and the 42-member Greens/European Free Alliance, the fourth-largest group, have been very vocal in their opposition.

Representatives from both groupings recently aired their concerns to ACP journalists during a recent visit to the Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.

Socialist/Labour parliamentarian Glenys Kinnock, co-president of the ACP/EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, said there were grave concerns that the EC was hastening to conclude the EPAs with key issues of trade and development unresolved.

Comparing the five-year EPA negotiations, to be concluded by year-end, to the World Trade Organisation's Doha round of negotiations – which started in 2001 and are yet to be concluded – Kinnock said it was unfair to expect ACP nations to make "huge decisions about liberalisation and how their economies would fare" in such a short space of time.

Also voicing concerns was fellow socialist/labour parliamentarian David Martin, who said the EC was criticised repeatedly about only presenting parliamentarians with a one-sided pro-EPA version of the issues.

Carl Schlyter, member of the Greens/European Free Alliance and co-chair of the EC Committee of the ACP/EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, described the trade negotiations as "very undemocratic" and told the journalists that while there was a large free trade lobby in parliament, there was also widespread desire to see it properly managed. (CH)