Home

Welcome from the Chair

Welcome to the site of the European Parliament's Delegation to the Joint CARIFORUM EU Parliamentary Committee.

As the elected chair of the delegation, I preside over our regular meetings in Brussels and Strasbourg and set the agenda for our work with our counterparts from the 15 parliaments from the CARIRIFORUM countries.

Our Delegation was only established in 2010, after the European Parliament gave its consent, in 2009, to the EU CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with CARIFORUM. This EPA aims to promote EU-CARIFORUM trade - and ultimately contribute, through trade and investment, to sustainable development and poverty reduction. Article 231 of the EPA provides for the creation of a CARIFORUM-EU Parliamentary Committee.

Over the past years we have monitored the application and management of this commercial agreement, requesting information from the Commission and CARIFORUM counterparts in the Joint Council and Trade and Development Committee and giving recommendations to them.

After five years, the results of the EPA were rather limited. In the coming period, we hope to contribute to good implementation of the agreement as well as increased awareness amongst business and other stakeholders on both sides, in the hope that the EPA will better achieve its goals.

I look forward to making a success of this parliamentary dialogue, contributing to the success of the EPA.

Boleslaw G. PIECHA