The European Union (EU) ambassador to Bangladesh Charles Whiteley recently said Bangladesh needs to comply with 32 international conventions to avail of the Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) facilities until 2029.
Addressing a press briefing, EU Ambassador in Dhaka Charles Whitley also informed reporters that an EU exploratory mission will arrive in Dhaka in July to assess the feasibility of sending election observers from the EU.
Envoys from seven countries, including Germany, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Italy told it while briefing the media at an event recently.
The EU envoy said that despite the pandemic and war effects, Bangladesh’s exports to the EU went up by 50%.
That’s an amazing lesson. And what we want to do in the coming years is to make sure there’s a smooth transition to GSP Plus, and the outline of the guidelines for doing that is very clear, he said.
“To make sure it happens smoothly and happily, we will have a European Chamber of Commerce become operational this year,” he added.
“We’re also working on and will launch this year’s negotiations on a new generation agreement, what we call the partnership and cooperation agreement, or PCA,” he added.
“This new agreement will cover all sorts of policy areas, from climate change, energy, cybersecurity, and maritime science and technology and also trade.”
He said the EU is changing the way it supports Bangladesh.
“We no longer refer to ourselves as development partners. We’re international partners, and one of the vehicles for that international partnership now in terms of assistance is the Global Gateway scheme,” he added.
Focusing on human rights, the EU envoy said that every agreement that concludes with any country has a clause on human rights and democracy.
“It’s an essential element of our agreements with all our partners, and that means that we discuss human rights and democracy with all our partners,” he added.
The envoys from other European countries also spoke at the event.
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