European Parliament
Raül Romeva i Rueda  (Verts/ALE ),
in writing.
– Abstention. The Greens have a rather critical stance to the FTA policy in principle. In the Mediterranean, the Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) commissioned by DG Trade for the EuroMed FTA project has – along with problems of the environmental carrying capacity of the basin – indicated increased social hardships in the short to medium term, which could be detrimental to the democratic aspirations of its people. However, the Greens accept that in the EU’s neighbourhood, countries will need to be aligned to the EU economy. In this sense, a reasonably timed DCFTA approach might be the right way ahead. This is surely true for the devastated economies of the eastern neighbours.

