Proposed bilateral agreement with Europe progressing slowly
Elaine Ruzul S. Ramos
Manila Standard
The European Commission has criticized the Philippines for the lack of progress in a proposed bilateral partnership and cooperation agreement, saying the deal would have benefited the nearly one million Filipinos working and living in Europe.
Ambassador Alistair MacDonald of the European Commission said in a briefing yesterday the Philippines was not taking advantage of Europe’s potential as a trading partner and source of potential investments.
“The Philippines just does not pay that much attention to Europe. The Philippines has a relatively limited interest to partner and cooperate with Europe,” added MacDonald.
He said the commission had presented the draft of the agreement to Asean countries 18 months ago but the Philippines to date had not commented on it.
MacDonald said Manila had reiterated its commitment to forging a partnership with the European Union.
“The words are there but we need concrete actions,” he added.
He said the commission was working on finalizing agreements with Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore and had made headway with Vietnam.
The commission wants to have a bilateral cooperation agreement with Asean countries first before forging a free trade agreement with ther region as a bloc.
The Foreign Affairs Department is the lead counterpart agency of the European Commission in the initiative.
MacDonald suggested that the Philippines speed up the series of inter-agency consultations on the proposed bilateral agreement to catch up with other countries in the region.
He said he was not urging the Philippines do things hastily, citing the importance of the agreements that needed careful deliberation.
“Worst-case scenario is that we make progress on the free trade agreement with Asean and the Philippines is not able to take part of it because we have not forged an agreement at the bilateral level,” added MacDonald.
He said the proposed partnership and cooperation agreement the commission was forging on a bilateral level would lead to the modernization of the agreement between the commission and Asean that was forged way back in the ’80s.
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