StopEpa.org

On Sunday October 17, STOP EPA campaigners will March in international demonstration carrying STOP EPA banners, as well as a banner with ‘STOP EU-ACP FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS’.

17-10-04 : European Social Forum: STOP EPA workshop: Worse than the WTO? EPA’s the issues

During the European Social Forum, the STOP EPA coalition organises different activities on the EU-ACP EPA negotiations. On Sunday 17th October: a workshop called ’Worse than the WTO? EPAs - the issues’ will be organized from 9am-12pm room ULU 3D in Bloomsbury.

The final day, of the ESF programme, 17th October, will pick up on the workshop of the day by a sketch of the Historical context by Alastair Fraser. Odour Ong’wen will address the relations between EPA’s, the WTO, and regional integration, whilst Matt Griffith (CAFOD) will deal with agriculture and EPA’s. Case studies will be given by Impact on agro-industries (Cosmas Ochieng, Christian Aid), Ghanaian tomatoes and Kenyan sugar (ActionAid). Part 2 will have discussions, presentations of thoughts presented to the whole workshop and closing summary from the chair.

16-10-04 : European Social Forum: STOP EPA workshop: Worse than the WTO? An introduction to EPA’s

During the European Social Forum, the STOP EPA coalition organises different activities on the EU-ACP EPA negotiations. On Saturday 16th October: a workshop called ’Worse than the WTO? An introduction to EPA’ s’ will be organized from 9am-11am room ULU Palms, Bloomsbury.

An introduction to EPA’ s will be conducted and chaired by Marc Maes. Part one of this session addresses: What are EPA’s and why we should be worried by Tom Sharman (ActionAid) followed by EPA’s – the African perspective given by Nancy Kachingwe and on the European perspective by Stefan Verwer (Both ENDS). Part 2 of this session will break up into discussions tackling the understanding of EPA’s, links to other campaigns, and on campaign strategy and ideas. Consequently there will be presentations of deliberations to the whole workshop. This will be concluded by a summary from the chair.

15-10-04 : European Social Forum: European launch of the STOP EPA campaign

During the European Social Forum, the STOP EPA coalition will organise different activities on the EU-ACP EPA negotiations. The most important activity is a seminar in which the European side of the STOP EPA campaign will be launched.

Aditi Sharma of ACTSA will chair the meeting, which will start with a rough guide to EPA’s under various topics; ‘ What are EPA’s and why we should be worried’ addressed by Marc Maes (11.11.11); ‘Impacts of EPA’ s’ (case of East Africa) by Odour Ong’wen (SEATINI); followed by questions from the floor. The second part of the seminar will deal with the Stop EPA campaign with an introduction to pan-ACP campaign offered by Nancy Kachingwe (ATN); an introduction to European campaign by Liz Dodd (Traidcraft) and concluded with questions from the floor. Yash Tandon (SEATINI) will conclude by sketching the big picture and a call to action

The African Trade Network has initiated the STOP EPA campaign during their annual meeting in December 2002. In a strategy meeting in April 2004, European civil society groups, together with their ACP colleagues took the initiative to participate in the STOP EPA campaign.

15-10-04 : European Social Forum: STOP EPA activities

During the European Social Forum, the STOP EPA coalition will organise different activities on the EU-ACP EPA negotiations. Yash Tandon will highlight the importance of the issues in the plenary 'The European economy and the world economy: the WTO and trade justice - on Friday 15th October - at 1-3pm - in Plenary 4.1: Alexandra Palace.

14-10-04 : European Social Forum: STOP EPA strategy meeting

The STOP EPA campaign organises a strategy meeting for European campaigners attending the European Social Forum in London. The meeting aims at bringing together European campaigners to discuss the EPA campaign and possible strategies towards lobbying the EU policymakers and campaigning on the issues. The speakers will be (amongst others) Odour Ong'wen (SEATINI Kenya), Nancy Kachingwe (TWN Africa) and Yash Tandon (SEATINI).

The meeting will be held on Thursday October 14. Register to get exact timing and venue to Stefan Verwer

13-10-04 : GUARDIAN: EU pushes its WTO Agenda shamelessly

Last week the Guardian newspaper released a report on the efforts of Britain towards addressing current trade issues and efforts on Africa. Despite the attempt of the G7s to meet their millennium development goals for the poorer countries through development aid, results will not be seen especially if the trade-playing field between EU and these poorer countries is not evened.

The paper accuses the EU of shameless behavior, by proposing to have African countries open up their markets (90%) to unarguably competitive trade with the richer countries, through the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Therefore any effort of helping Africa (and the Caribbean and the pacific) to rise above "scar on the conscience of the world’’ as described by the British Prime minister seems headed in a negative direction. The African commission hereby seems to be weighted with high expectations to go beyond its description as a talking shop and exercise its moral duty to stop these unfair policies.

Read the map full article .