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Cotonou Agreement & ACP-EPA

Madeleine Lang made this access to documents request to Secretariat General of the European Commission

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Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

Documents concerning the first version of the Cotonou Agreement (2000):
European Commission minutes & reports of discussions on the trade relations (Economic Partnership Agreements) under the Cotonou Agreement (1998-2000)
Proposals and consultation papers for the Cotonou Agreement
Negotiation mandates and directives for the Cotonou Agreement
List of EU negotiators, trade experts, researchers involved in the preparation of the Cotonou negotiations/ EU-ACP EPA negotiations
Impact analysis/assessments of the Cotonou Agreement (2000) (and any communication between the negotiators and trade experts/researchers about these reports)

I would really appreciate it if you could already release documents (electronic format) when they are retrieved instead of waiting until you have collected all the requested documents. Thanks in advance!

Yours faithfully,

Madeleine Lang
In der Au 10,
76646 Bruchsal, Germany

Sg-Acc-Doc@ec.europa.eu, Secretariat General of the European Commission

Your message has been received by the Transparency Unit of the
Secretariat-General of the European Commission.
Requests for public access to documents are treated on the basis of
[1]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.
The Secretariat-General will reply to your request within 15 working days
upon registration of your request and will duly inform you of the
registration of the request (or of any additional information to be
provided in view of its registration and/or treatment).
 
 
L’unité «Transparence» du secrétariat général de la Commission européenne
a bien reçu votre message.
Les demandes d’accès du public aux documents sont traitées sur la base du
[2]règlement (CE) n° 1049/2001 du 30 mai 2001 relatif à l’accès du public
aux documents du Parlement européen, du Conseil et de la Commission.
Le secrétariat général répondra à votre demande dans un délai de 15 jours
ouvrables à compter de la date d’enregistrement de votre demande, et vous
informera de cet enregistrement (ou vous indiquera toute information
supplémentaire à fournir en vue de l'enregistrement et/ou du traitement de
votre demande).
 
 
Ihre Nachricht ist beim Referat „Transparenz“ des Generalsekretariats der
Europäischen Kommission eingegangen.
Anträge auf Zugang zu Dokumenten werden auf der Grundlage der
[3]Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1049/2001 vom 30. Mai 2001 über den Zugang der
Öffentlichkeit zu Dokumenten des Europäischen Parlaments, des Rates und
der Kommission behandelt.
Das Generalsekretariat beantwortet Ihre Anfrage innerhalb von
15 Arbeitstagen nach deren Registrierung und wird Sie über die
Registrierung Ihres Antrags (oder die Notwendigkeit weiterer Informationen
im Hinblick auf dessen Registrierung und/oder Bearbeitung) unterrichten.
 
 

References

Visible links
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
3. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...

sg-acc-doc@ec.europa.eu,

Dear Sir or Madam,

We hereby acknowledge the receipt of your request for access to documents
sent on 29/12/2022 and registered on 30/12/2022 under the case number
2022/7443.

We will handle your request within 15 working days as of the date of
registration. The time-limit expires on 24/01/2023. We will let you know
if we need to extend this time limit for additional 15 working days.

To find more information on how we process your personal data, please see
[1]the privacy statement.

Yours faithfully,

Secretariat-General - Access to Documents
European Commission

References

Visible links
1. https://ec.europa.eu/info/principles-and...

ORTIGÃO DELGADO Margarida, Secretariat General of the European Commission

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]themeData
Link: [3]colorSchemeMapping

Dear Ms. Lang,

We are writing concerning your request for access to Commission documents
registered on 30/12/2022 under case number 2022/7443.

We are currently working on your request. However, we have not yet been
able to gather all the elements necessary to carry out a full analysis of
your request. We will not be able to send you the reply within the
prescribed time limit expiring on 24/01/2023, considering that:

• the application concerns a very large number of documents;
• in order to retrieve the documents requested, large files have to be
examined;
• the application concerns documents held by different Services, which
must be consulted.

Therefore, in line with Article 7(3) of [4]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001,
we need to extend this time limit by 15 additional working days. The new
time limit expires on 14/02/2023.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Kind regards,

INTPA.A.1

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D930DE.F44D7450
2. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
3. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
4. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...

BUTTITTA Lory (INTPA), Secretariat General of the European Commission

1 Attachment

Dear Ms Lang,

Please find the documents in attached.

Best regards,

INTPA A1 Secretariat

Dear BUTTITTA Lory (INTPA),
I’m trying to find out why the SADC-EPA restricts regional integration processes in the SADC region whilst it is supposed to be an instrument promoting regional integration and whilst the EU presents itself as a promoter of regional integration worldwide. Hence, I mostly want to analyse these documents to find out how the EU talked about the SADC EPA, EPAs in general and possible risks of the EPAs. Since I’m focusing on regional integration and the fragmentation of SADC due to the SADC EPA I’m mostly interested in text passages which touch upon these issues. The EPAs are the trade pillar of the Cotonou Agreement (signed 2000 and negotiated 1998-2000). To negotiate structure, format and principles for the negotiations, the first negotiation round was on an all-ACP Group level (Sep 2002- Sep 2003). In July 2004, the EU started to negotiate with SADC to establish an EPA– SADC was fragmented into four regional economic communities to negotiate the EPAs. Thus, most of the documents I’m interested in are published during the time period 1998-2005. I’m asking for preparatory documents such as the impact analysis and communication between negotiators and trade experts/researchers to find out whether the EU did not anticipate the fragmentation and restriction of regional integration processes in SADC because the generated knowledge by the EU was not adequate enough or because of bad communication between negotiators and researchers etc (ignorance) or because the EU assumed SADC states would act differently (error)....I want to analyse I’m trying to find out why the SADC-EPA restricts regional integration processes in the SADC region whilst it is supposed to be an instrument promoting regional integration and whilst the EU presents itself as a promoter of regional integration worldwide. Hence, I mostly want to analyse these documents to find out how the EU talked about the SADC EPA, EPAs in general and possible risks of the EPAs. Since I’m focusing on regional integration and the fragmentation of SADC due to the SADC EPA I’m mostly interested in text passages which touch upon these issues. The EPAs are the trade pillar of the Cotonou Agreement (signed 2000 and negotiated 1998-2000). To negotiate structure, format and principles for the negotiations, the first negotiation round was on an all-ACP Group level (Sep 2002- Sep 2003). In July 2004, the EU started to negotiate with SADC to establish an EPA– SADC was fragmented into four regional economic communities to negotiate the EPAs. Thus, most of the documents I’m interested in are published during the time period 1998-2005. I’m asking for preparatory documents such as the impact analysis and communication between negotiators and trade experts/researchers to find out whether the EU did not anticipate the fragmentation and restriction of regional integration processes in SADC because the generated knowledge by the EU was not adequate enough or because of bad communication between negotiators and researchers etc (ignorance) or because the EU assumed SADC states would act differently (error). I want to analyse other documents to find out if and if yes, why the EU anticipated this impact but still proceeded to negotiate the EPAs.

impact analysis/assessment -> 1999: “EC (1999), Négociation UE-ACP: Synthèse des études d’impact de la proposition de l’UE de négocier des APER avec les sous-régions ACP, Document de travail des services de la Commission pour le groupe de négociation 3 ‘Coopération économique et commerciale’, 14 juin, Bruxelles, Brussels: European Commission.” ( I need this version if possible in English- otherwise French and German are okay as well- it was used in this paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication... )
Here https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2... it is explained that the EC starts to prepare trade agreements by assessing the likely impact of an agreement. I need this impact assessment for the EU SADC EPA (and EPAs in general). Since it is clarified that the EC prepares these assessments before the negotiation period this would either be before the all-ACP round (2002) or before July 2004 (when the negotiations with SADC started).

Concerning the communication between negotiators- trade experts/researchers I’m interested in finding out what they had to say about these reports and which possible impacts they discussed e.g. since I’m focusing on regional integration- did they discuss about the possible fragmentation of regions that would negatively affect regional integration e.g. in SADC? How did the EU react to that (indifferent, hoping it will not happen, thinking they can react to this issue etc…) Did they not communicate efficiently e.g. were certain recommendations by researchers ignored…Hence, I would be happy to receive any minutes of meetings where the negotiators consulted the trade experts/ or communication via email/ a report on their consultation and discussion (between 2002 and 2005).

Proposals and consultation papers for the SADC-EPA (see preparing and negotiating https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2... most likely between 2002-2005) / proposals and consultation papers for EPAs in general would also be okay (1998-2002) (mentioned in Trade Negotiation Insights by ECDPM and South Centre issues on EPAs)

Negotiation mandates and directives for the SADC EPA published (2002-2004) (a document like this but specifically for the SADC EPA https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/doc... + a list with names and further information on the Commissioner for Trade at Ministerial level, Senior Official of DG Trade at senior official level and the DG Trade Unit, as well as trade experts and researchers responsible for SADC-EC EPA coordination in the first negotiation round 2004-2007 (SADC) all ACP (2002-2003))- see again ‘Negotiating Trade Agreements’
/ and/or minutes/reports of their meetings to prepare SADC EPA negotiations
Is there a document listing in a chronological order all EU meetings that were held to prepare, discuss and negotiate the SADC-EPA (and or EPAs in general)?

Review of EU-SADC EPA or EU-SADC monitoring and evaluation report (mentioned here: https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/cft/cft... - hence it should have been published some time in 2022)

The Commission’s Work Programme/Activity Report (1995-2000 is sufficient- (not the resolutions of the Committee on The Commission’s Work Programme but the final version like this one: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...)

Yours sincerely,

Madeleine Lang

TRADE-ACCES-DOCUMENTS@ec.europa.eu, Secretariat General of the European Commission

1 Attachment

Dear Ms LANG,

We refer to your three following applications for Access to Documents
submitted to DG TRADE: 2022/7442, 2023/0553 and 2023/0921.

 

Kindly accept our apologies for the delay in dealing with your request,
which is mainly due to a high number of requests for access to documents
being processed at the same time and to the nature of the documents
identified in the framework of your request. Please note that due to their
complexity and area of competences cases 2023/0553 and 2023/0921 were
split with DG INTPA.

 

Before further analysing your requests, could you please confirm that you
are still looking for documents listed in your three applications? In
particular, your request 2023/0553 that is split with DG INTPA (INTPA's
request 2022/7443) in which you were asked for further clarifications by
the e-mail of 24/02/2023 (Second Request for Clarification by INTPA).

 

Please also note that meanwhile under Transparency policy, DG TRADE has
published a number of documents related to your requests. In particular,
regarding the Economic Partnership Agreement with SADC that are available
under the following link:

 

[1]https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/09242...

 

We would kindly ask you to confirm your interest in the three
above-mentioned requests. If you are still interested in obtaining
additional documents under the Access to Documents request, we will have
to ask you for further clarification on the scope of your applications,
further to the communication of 24/02/2023 that your received from DG
INTPA (Second Request for Clarification).

 

 

Best regards

Maud LABAT

Head of Unit

 

 

 

[2]http://ec.europa.eu/trade/images/ec-logo...
European Commission
DG TRADE
Unit R3 Transparency, Civil Society and Communications

 

 

References

Visible links
1. https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/09242...

We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Madeleine Lang please sign in and let everyone know.