BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Strong support for extension of the negotiating deadline for a series of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) between Europe and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states has come from the Joint Assembly of the European Union and the ACP countries.

The specific calls and proposed actions by the Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) was scheduled to be released late yesterday ahead of the closing session of the four-day event in the Rwandan capital of Kigali that started on November 19.

Armed with the text of what they have presented as the “JPA Kigali Declaration” – a copy of which was obtained yesterday by the Observer – some of the delegates plan to utilise it in lobbying efforts at the Commonwealth Summit that gets under way in Kampala, Uganda today.

The Kigali Declaration has coincided with stirring pleas by some leading regional thinkers and representatives of business and civil society organisations, for both a postponement of the December 31, 2007 deadline to complete negotiations for six EPAs, as well as for public disclosure of the draft EPA for the Carribbean.

According to the text of the Declaration, the ACP and EU parliamentary representatives want the European Commission – the executive arm of the EU – to cease pressurising the ACP bloc of states to sign on to the trade access provisions of the EPAs. This, as efforts continue to resolve outstanding issues on the development aspect of the partnership accords that will eventually replace the existing Cotonou Convention signed in June 2000.

The assembly of parliamentarians noted with “concern that the European Commission has stated that, if agreements are not in place, (by the given year-end deadline), tariffs will be imposed on many exports from non-Least Developed Countries (LDCs) of the ACP states, starting January 31, 2008…”.

Such a development, the parliamentarians said, would “threaten the welfare and livelihoods of millions of workers in ACP states”, and urged the EC to adopt a two-step approach in order to avoid trade disruption for some countries while continuing negotiations beyond this year-end for “comprehensive development-friendly EPAs…”.

In articulating an “overall approach” to achieve a satisfactory resolution to prevailing fundamental differences on both trade and development aspects of the EPAs, the Kigali Declaration stressed that “all agreements reached, whether interim arrangements or full EPAs, must ensure that no country is left worse off after the expiry of the negotiated deadline…”.

Special mechanisms are to be established to ensure, as they promised, “accountability and reporting of the EPAs’ contribution to equitable and sustainable development”.