20 Amendments of Michèle RIVASI related to 2021/2178(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 (new)
Paragraph -1 (new)
-1. Whereas African economies remain by and large heavily concentrated on natural resources-based products and commodities;
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Welcomes the positive shiftchange in EU- Africa relations towards a partnership on an equal footing, allowing both sides to pursue their own interests but also to identify common areas of cooperation; stresses that free, fair, and sustainable trade facilitates inclusive economic growth and, sustainable development, and contributes to poverty reduction; highlights, in this regard, highlights the importance of the new pPartnership aAgreement between the EU and the members of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, the upcoming summitneed to ensure coherence between theits African Union and the EU, and Protocol and the upcoming AU-EU Summit, as well as innovative initiatives such as the EU mMulti- stakeholder dDialogue for sSustainable cocoaCocoa; in this respect, calls on the EU to actively support policies to develop cocoa processing at the local, national and regional level;
Amendment 10 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1 a. Recalls that the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of the global supply chain, while giving a new impetus to the need to build regional markets in Africa, fostering intra-African trade, investment and value chains, for greater economic autonomy of the continent;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls on the EU to actively support the new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which presents a major opportunity for African countries to boost inclusive growth, enable sustainable development, and reduce poverty and improve living standards; notes that the AfCFTA pavrovides the way for aability to fundamentally transformation of the continent’s development prospects; takes the view that EU support to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) be parallel to the development of regulative frameworks, to prevent a “race to the bottom” of social and environmental norms resulting from the removal of trade barriers;
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2 a. Recalls the statement of the UN Economic Commission for Africa indicating that it believes the economic partnership agreements between the EU and African countries could have negative consequences for intra-African trade; points out that none of the EPAs in place today correspond to the existing 8 Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in Africa, thereby undermining their integration dynamics; stresses that a partnership of equals entails to take into account the concerns of African countries in terms of economic diversification, industrialisation, loss of government revenues and regional integration;
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 b (new)
Paragraph 2 b (new)
2 b. Urges the EU to acknowledge diverging views on EPAs, to find concrete solutions to respond to African countries concerns and to refrain from launching or broadening EPA negotiations, including through the “rendez-vous” clauses unless ACP countries proactively make such demand; more broadly, reiterates its request to have an in-depth analysis on the impact of EPAs, and its compliance with the SDGs and the principle of Policy Coherence for Development;
Amendment 30 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Emphasises that eEconomic pPartnership aAgreements (EPAs) need to support the various regional trade communities in Africa and the further development of the AfCFTA, and contribute to the building of resilient, and sustainable local and regional value chains, and help to boosting and diversifying intra- African trade; calls for chapters ensuring consistunderlines that the interim EPAs do not have a specific trade and sustainable development chapter; and accordingly, calls for the systematic and consistent inclusion and implementation of Trade and Sustainable Development chapters on human rights, labour and environmental standards in all currently negotiated and future EPAs, ensuring coherencye with development needs and policies and the UN sustainable development goals to always be included and implSDGs, especially with regard to their impact on deforestation, climate change and biodiversity loss and the ILO Decent work agenda; in addition, stresses the importance of including the objective of combating forced labour and child labour in TSD chapters of Union trade agreementeds;
Amendment 42 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Welcomes the reform of the EU Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) as one of the EU’s key trade instruments for supporting developing countries in their efforts to promote sustainable development and economic diversification, reduce poverty and ensure respect for human rights; welcomes, in particular, the aim to facilitate increased economic growth and job creation in developing countries on the African continent; stresses that enhanced social and environmental conditionality to benefit from preferential trade preferences should be embedded into the technical and financial assistance projects under the NDICI-Global Europe instrument. targeting notably those benefiting from the special arrangements given their vulnerability and lack of economic diversification; calls on the EU to make sure that European tTrade policy does not contradict efforts byfrom African partners to establish viable economic structures.; calls, accordingly, for the removal of the provisions in the GSP Regulation which are linked to EU interests only, namely those conditionalities linked to migration and access to raw materials; recalls that the GSP regime should support the regional integration process of the African continent;
Amendment 53 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4 a. Recalls that the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) on financing for development highlighted the need to mobilise more domestic resources for achieving SDGs; recalls that one of the main objectives for African countries is to climb up the global value chain through economic diversification; but recalls that commodity dependence remains one of the main development challenges for poorer African economies, which failed by and large to diversify their export;
Amendment 55 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Amendment 58 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 c (new)
Paragraph 4 c (new)
4 c. Stresses the key role attributed to the EU External Investment Plan (EIP), and notably the European Fund for Sustainable Development as its first pillar, for shaping EU trade and investment policy towards Africa, in parallel with the EPAs; recalls its emphasis put on improving the investment climate in partner countries; stresses that the EU’s commitment to boost private sector investment for achieving the SDGs shall be tantamount to the definition of mandatory human rights, social rights and environmental due diligence obligations, based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human rights, which shall apply to the whole value chain and include provisions on access to justice;
Amendment 62 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 d (new)
Paragraph 4 d (new)
4 d. Urges the EU to better anchor its trade and investment engagement with Africa on African priorities and initiatives, notably the AU’s Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, and supporting African institutions and trade stakeholders; more broadly, calls on the EU to fully commit to the principle of Policy Coherence for Development, especially in a context where the design of the EU External Investment Plan results in integrating EU aid with EU trade interests and private sector promotion to support geostrategic ambitions;
Amendment 65 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 e (new)
Paragraph 4 e (new)
Amendment 68 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 f (new)
Paragraph 4 f (new)
4 f. Stresses the need to shift the focus away from a system that prioritizes investor protection to one that emphasizes the advancement of national and global development goals through sustainable investment;
Amendment 70 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 g (new)
Paragraph 4 g (new)
4 g. Urges the EU to review its investment treaties, to ensure a fair balance between rights and obligations for investors to respect human rights, the environment, and refrain from illegal action, such as corruption and fraud; stresses the need to include obligations on home states to support sustainable investment and allow victims to seek justice in the home state of the investor;
Amendment 72 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 h (new)
Paragraph 4 h (new)
4 h. Calls on the Commission to promote sustainable investments to advance towards a carbon-free economy, in line with its pledge in the Glasgow Climate Pact, while ensuring a responsible and sustainable sourcing and management of natural resources and raw materials, as well as sustainable waste management in line with its Green Deal objectives;
Amendment 73 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 i (new)
Paragraph 4 i (new)
4 i. Encourages African countries, at a time when UNICA reports that many of the investments treaties concluded in the 1990s-early 2000s have recently expired or are about to expire, to review and reform its investment and double taxation treaties according to their development needs; to this effect, believes that the African Continental Free Trade Area and the ongoing regional integration efforts provide a good opportunity to rebalance the international investment regime so that it becomes responsible, equitable and conducive to sustainable development;
Amendment 76 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 j (new)
Paragraph 4 j (new)
4 j. Underlines that the disruptions triggered by COVID-19 have shone a spotlight on the vulnerabilities of the global food system; urges the Commission to develop a strategy to gradually shift away from trade-oriented agricultural policies to local and regional markets, which hold major potential to address current food system failures;
Amendment 77 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 k (new)
Paragraph 4 k (new)
4 k. Is worried about the high dependence of African states on food imports from the EU, particularly subsidised products that represent harmful competition for small-scale local agriculture; calls on the EU to ensure that its trade and investment policy respects inter alia the 2018 UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas; the FAO Voluntary Guidelines of Tenure, Land and Forests and for Securing Sustainable Small Scale Fisheries, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and Free, Prior and Informed Consent, as set out in the ILO Convention 169;
Amendment 79 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 l (new)
Paragraph 4 l (new)
4 l. Underlines the trade-related impact of the digitisation of economic activities and its associated trade-in- services dynamics; reminds that African countries need to preserve and expand their policy space to undertake digital industrialisation; urges the EU to take on board African priorities and to refrain from negotiating digital clauses in investment agreements that would restrict their ability to regulate, redistribute the profits, improve their public services or hinder their local technological development strategy;