Long Awaited EU Meeting with East African States
The East African Community (EAC) secretariat and the European Union (EU) will hold a joint meeting in Kigali Rwanda from 21st to 23rd July, 2014 to consider the outstanding issues.
During the last joint EAC EU official negotiations meeting on EPA that was held on March 27, 2014 in Nairobi the following issues were not resolved:
- Export taxes
- Domestic support and export subsidies under agriculture
- Relation with the Cocotonou Agreement (No-execution Clause)
- Good governance on tax matters and
- Consequences from customs Union agreements signed with Turkey.
The deadline to sign the EAC EU Economic Partnership agreement is October 1, 2014. If this stumbles, Kenya faces grave risks of losing its market share to other flower producing countries like Ethiopia, Ecuador, and Colombia among others.
