Strengthening the Andean Community: suspension of negotiations with Peru and Colombia
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is opposed to the negotiations that will be held this week between the European Union and the governments of Colombia and Peru. The talks, aimed at concluding bilateral trade agreements, put an end to the initial aim of negotiating an association agreement between the European Union and the Andean Community that includes political dialogue and cooperation as well as a trade dimension.
By scrapping the full association agreement with the Andean Community, the European Union flies in the face of the strategy launched with the Rio Summit in 1999 (and which it reiterated at subsequent summits) in support of the development of political associations that strengthen integration and social cohesion processes in Latin America.
A negotiation limited to trade aspects alone will make it impossible to introduce a chapter on decent work, which offers a practical and substantive form to the application of workers’ fundamental rights, as stated in a declaration signed by the ETUC and the Coordination of Andean Trade Union Federations (CCSA).
For this reason, the ETUC urges the European Commission to resume negotiations in support of an agreement between the two blocs and to give up its plans to conclude bilateral free trade agreements.
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