Free trade agreement with Colombia and Peru

In 2006, the EU announced the launch of negotiations of an association agreement comprising pillars on cooperation, political dialogue and trade.

During the talks Bolivia and Ecuador decided to leave the negotiating table because of the EU's industry-friendly stance on free trade.

However, the negotiation of a free-trade agreement with Colombia and Peru continued. The EU's sustainability impact assessment highlighted the high risks associated with pressure on water and land resources, biodiversity loss and the displacement of people through mining and oil drilling. The negotiations ignored these findings.

The Greens support the continuous economic development promoted by Colombian and Peruvian industries and supported by the social partners and civil society organisations.

However, we believe that the current agreement will actually reverse such trends, to the benefit of political and industrial elites.

We also view the catastrophic human rights situation in the two countries as a severe obstacle to doing business in the region.

The Greens succeeded in establishing a broad, inclusive dialogue on the agreements, fuelling Parliament's debate for more than a year.

In the context of this strategy we supported the S&D action plan on human rights, which was later watered down.

We also backed a Dutch study highlighting blatant inconsistencies between EU attempts to regulate banks at home whilst pushing for liberalisation abroad.

The Greens' opposition to the agreement failed to gain majority support.

However, many MEPs did take on board our arguments on human rights violations and double standards in the regulation of the banking industry.

Support for this agreement was much weaker than it had been for the Association Agreement with Central America, which was adopted the same day and had not been subjected to such intensive campaigning.