Everything but Arms (EBA) is an initiative of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

under which all imports to the EU from the Least Developed Countries are duty-free and

quota Quota may refer to: Economics * Import quota, a trade restriction on the quantity of goods imported into a country * Market Sharing Quota, an economic system used in Canadian agriculture * Milk quota, a quota on milk production in Europe * Indi ...

-free, with the exception of

armaments A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...

. EBA entered into force on 5 March 2001. There were transitional arrangements for

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

and

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

until January 2006, July 2009 and September 2009 respectively. The EBA is part of the EU

Generalized System of Preferences The Generalized System of Preferences, or GSP, is a preferential tariff system which provides tariff reduction on various products. The concept of GSP is very different from the concept of " most favored nation" (MFN). MFN status provides equal tre ...

(GSP). The up-to-date list of all countries benefiting from such preferential treatment is given in Annex IV of the consolidated text of Regulation (EU) 978/2012. The aim of the scheme is to encourage the

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development hell, when a project is stuck in development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting *Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped * Photograph ...

of the world's poorest countries.

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...

, having graduated from LDC status in 2014 (becoming instead a

developing country A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

), was removed from the list of EBA beneficiaries on 1 January 2019. On January 16, 2019, the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

decided to re-introduce import duties on rice from

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

and

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

. This was done because imports of Indica rice from both countries combined have increased by 89% in the past five rice-growing seasons. At the same time, the prices were substantially lower than those on the EU market and had actually decreased over the same period. This surge in low-price imports has caused serious difficulties for EU rice producers to the extent that their market share in the EU dropped substantially from 61% to 29%. Cambodia lost its EBA status in 2020 over

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

concerns.

History

GATT The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its prea ...

decision IV.D.3, dating back to 28 November 1979, provided the basis for more favourable treatments of least developed countries. The first proposal of an EBA agreement started on 20 September 2000: the

proposed introducing "duty-free, quota-free access for all products from all least developed countries into the EU". The preferential treatment promotes least developed countries (LDC) that, among other things, respect international conventions on human rights; the tariff preferences granted to

were recently suspended on some products because of "serious and systematic violations of the human rights principles enshrined in the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedo ...

Notes

References

Regulation (EU) No 978/2012
of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 applying a scheme of generalised tariff preferences and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 732/2008.

External links

European Union Generalised System of Preference regulation EC No 980/2005Archived versionEuropean Commission EU Trade Helpdesk - "Everything But Arms"
{{EU-stub Foreign relations of the European Union

History

See also

Notes

References

External links