by DANA WAGNER
The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) to open trade between East Africa and Europe is still on the table. At a three-day conference in Dar es Salaam negotiators walked away from the disputed deal, but promised to come back to it.
A deadline was set at the 7-9 June conference to sign the EPA and usher in freer trade between the two regions by the end of November 2010. A deal was first initialed in 2007 between the East African Community (EAC) of Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, and the bloc across the table, the European Commission (EC). This was the Framework for an Economic Partnership Agreement (FEPA), drafted as a temporary stand-in to await a mutually agreed EPA, but a formal deal has not since been reached because of an impasse over several key issues.
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