Plenary Session: Accession of Solomon Islands to the EU-Pacific States Interim Partnership Agreement

Accession of Solomon Islands to the EU-Pacific States Interim Partnership Agreement (A9-0050/2019 - Bernd Lange)

I voted against this Recommendation, in line with the Group of the Greens in the European Parliament, because we are against this type of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with these countries. These agreements, basically only for Free Trade, are not an instrument of economic growth and endogenous development. In this specific case, Solomon Islands' access to the interim Pacific EPA would have the same effect as observed. This access would consolidate the status of an exclusively resource exporting country.

In addition to criticism of the Agreement model, our main reasons for voting against it were: the fact that illegal logging is likely to increase (the IMF foresees the total annihilation of the Solomon Islands forests in the coming years); the reinforcement of overfishing with access by EU fleets (which is already carried out by Chinese vessels); the increase in maritime cargo transportation and consequent pollution are a factor of climate change; deepwater mining (this is one of the archipelago's main emerging industries, and it has a huge ecological impact).

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