What does the signed free trade agreement between EFTA and Colombia mean for Colombian trade politics and human rights, and how can we manage to include  a sustainable development perspective in international trade agreements?

The EFTA (European Free Trade Association) countries consist of four very small countries but with slightly larger economies: Lichtenstein, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. Their GDP’s range respectively from 3.000 to 350.000 million euros per year, this despite the fact that none of the countries extends 8 million inhabitants. Still, they contribute to some of the most vital global economic sectors; hence the EU (European Union) likes EFTA a lot. During the last years the EFTA countries have become more competitive in their international trade relations, but they also implemented a bit of a sneaky manner in their methods. One good example of this is the case of the free trade agreement between EFTA and Colombia, which has been signed by EFTA (2008) but not yet ratified by all the EFTA countries.

Even though EFTA states that “it is the goal of EFTA’s third-country policy to safeguard the economic interests of its Member States, to support and reinforce the process of European and interregional integration, and to contribute to worldwide efforts to liberalise trade and investment” the agreement has been widely criticised on the basis of the following question: how about also safeguarding the human rights by including the perspective of sustainable development in the trade agreements?

During our “I have a Mango” Norway part we escaped the November rain for a few hours one night and went to a debate about this topic. Here we got to listen to both Norwegian and Colombian researchers’ opinions about the free trade agreement, and our Mango participant Juanma was also active in the follow-up questions. The Mango group as you probably already realised works with sustainable development, and our concern is of course: how to include the sustainable development perspective in international trade? The following questions posed under the debate were very useful for us in that manner:

1. How was the process before and during the free trade agreement from EFTAs side?

2. What is the implications of this free trade agreement for Norway and Colombia?

3. How will this agreement affect Colombian trade politics?

The main input from the different researchers and reports from this meeting, suggests that Colombian politics will not – as EFTA states – become more free with this agreement; not on a long term basis. On the contrary, this deal will serve as a sleaping pill to the actions that needs to be taken by the Colombian government when it comes to human right conditions and corruption issues. Civil society have good reasons to suspect that Norway and EFTA wants to get into the international marked before USA and EU with this agreement, seeing that both are reluctant to signing agreements with Colombia due to the human rights situation in the country (and most likely also additional economic and/or political reasons that I know less about still). Another question evolves here; how can Norway – a country so proud of their human rights, equality and not to mention the severely hyped “Nordic model” – sign an agreement with a country in which the state representative’s still does not pay sufficient attention to protect these exact human rights?

Entonces, some reasons NOT to ratify this agreement:

• The agreement entails no consequences for violations of human rights
• It reinforces the power of a country without adequate legal protection for the population
• It does not include any directions about how to operate in accordance with human rights neither from Colombia’s side or internationally
• The agreement acknowledges that Colombia may impose martial law to preserve peace and order without this having consequences for the agreement. (Exception conditions have been used as a means to limit the rights of the opposition).
• Organizations in Colombia fear that the agreement will lead to increased poverty, further pressure on public services and greater social differences.
• The agreement limits the Colombian political action and prevents future governments from using incentives to promote development.

The EU has already a free trade agreement with Colombia, but they did a smart thing beforehand; include a well-formulated paragraph about sustainable development. Why isn’t EFTA being smart – or at least tactic – like this?

Read more about EFTA and Free trade agreements:

• EFTA’s network of free trade agreements (FTAs) secures economic operators preferential access to markets currently of around 440 million consumers outside the European Union.   Currently, the EFTA States have 24 free trade agreements, covering 33 countries.
• The negotiations between EFTA and Colombia were launched in early 2007 and concluded in the Swiss alpine resort of Crans-Montana on 12 June 2008.
• In 2007, total merchandise trade between EFTA and Colombia amounted to 720 million USD.
• With a combined population of around 12 million, the EFTA States are the world’s ninth largest merchandise trader, as well as significant actors in the areas of trade in services and foreign direct investment.
• The EFTA-Colombia FTA is the first such agreement concluded between European States and the Andean country.

Source: http://www.efta.int/free-trade.aspx