EU, Sri Lanka to establish new Working Group on governance, law and human rights

Friday, 3 April 2015 00:54 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The visiting EU's External Action Service - Asia Division Acting Managing Director Ugo Astuto (left) addresses the media yesterday along with EU Ambassador David Daly - Pic by Daminda Harsha Perera By Jayashika Padmasiri The European Union and Sri Lanka decided to set up a new Working Group on governance, rule of law and human rights. The move was one of the outcomes of the EU-Sri Lanka Joint Commission meeting which was held yesterday. Acting Managing Director for Asia and the Pacific of the European External Action Service Ugo Astuto revealed this at a media conference held at the European Union head office in Colombo. “At the Joint Commission meeting it was agreed in principle to establish a new Working Group on governance, rule of law and human rights to allow for a dialogue on these issues,” he said. Astuto added that following this agreement the two parties would work together to agree on the terms of reference for this Working Group. Astuto said that there had been progress on the human rights issue in Sri Lanka and that EU member states supported the deferral of discussion on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. They said this would provide the time and space requested by the Sri Lankan Government to deliver on its commitments to improve its human rights record and set up a credible domestic mechanism for accountability and reconciliation. “The EU will follow these developments closely. We will also provide trade-related assistance to help boost Sri Lanka’s export capacity,” Astuto added. Astuto also spoke about the recent ban on fishing exports from Sri Lanka to the EU under the EU regulation on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. “The EU took note of a recently-submitted roadmap and called on Sri Lanka to address the remaining shortcomings. Sri Lanka promised to submit its next progress report to the EU in May,” he said. Commenting on the process that may lead to Sri Lanka recovering its lost GSP+ status, Ambassador David Daly - who was also present at the media briefing - said: “GSP+ is an encouragement for developing countries to do more on human rights. Now we are in a different situation than earlier, therefore we think that the GSP+ can act as an encouragement for the Sri Lankan Government to do more and progress on human rights.” A precondition for GSP+ benefits is effective implementation of 27 UN conventions relating to human rights, labour rights, environment and good governance. EU is one of the major development donors of Sri Lanka and in the last 10 years Rs.114 billion (€ 77.4 million) of humanitarian and development assistance has been made available to Sri Lanka by the EU. The EU-Sri Lanka Joint Commission meeting which was held yesterday was co-chaired by Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Chitranganee Wagiswara.