An EU investigation has found Sri Lanka in breach of international human rights laws, meaning it is likely to lose more than US$100 million in trade concessions for its top exports to Europe, EU sources said.
Brussels is expected to publish tomorrow the findings of the investigation launched a year ago into allegations of human rights violations and torture in the 25-year war between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels.
“The evidence is very clear that Sri Lanka does not fulfill the basic human rights conditions of GSP Plus,” one EU source said on Friday, in reference to the system of preferential tariffs for the world’s poorest countries.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“I think the EU has leaked this deliberately. The motivation of the leak is to undermine Sri Lanka. The concession is a total process of economics, but the process is hijacked by politics. There is a political motive,” said Rajiva Wijesinghe, secretary of the Ministry for Human Rights and Disaster Management.
Brussels has consistently warned Sri Lanka it must meet 27 international human rights conventions to retain its Generalized System of Preferences Plus trade scheme.
“GSP Plus is not an instrument used for short-term political crisis, but is meant to provide long-term stability,” a European Commission official said.
“This is not a trade sanction. There are rules for GSP Plus and if you break the rules, then unfortunately there are consequences. They will keep basic GSP either way,” the official said.
Colombo came under heavy pressure from Western nations, including those in Europe with large Tamil populations, because of civilian deaths in the final phase of the war against the Tigers, which ended with the separatists’ defeat in May.
Last year, the government said it would neither cooperate with the EU’s investigation nor allow investigators into the country.
EU sources said its report showed evidence of police violence, torture and breaches of labor laws, notably the use of underage children.
The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly accused European countries with large and vocal Tamil populations of pandering to pro-Tamil Tiger viewpoints in exchange for electoral support.
“It is unfortunate for the Sri Lankan government that GSP Plus is so cut-and-dried. You either meet the requirements or you don’t. There is no discussion, no negotiation about it,” a Colombo-based diplomat from a developing nation said on condition of anonymity.
Last year, the EU was Sri Lanka’s largest export market, accounting for 36 percent of all exports, followed by the US with 24 percent.
TEXTILES
Suspending the preferential tariffs — which can go as low as zero — would hit Sri Lanka’s textile industry hard.
Garment exports to the EU last year reached US$3.47 billion and were its top source of foreign exchange, followed by remittances of US$3 billion and tea exports of US$1.2 billion.
Sri Lanka has seen an investment boom since the end of the war, with its stock market — one of the world’s most volatile — up 108 percent so far this year, the second best performing in the world after Peru’s.
It took advantage of this to sell its second US$500 million internationally traded bond this week to strong international demand, while ratings agency Standard and Poor’s upped its outlook to positive from stable on a stronger balance of payments picture and a US$2.6 billion IMF loan.
Many fear the loss of the EU trade terms would force big job cuts in Sri Lanka.
IMPORTERS
Major European importers, notably large British retailers such as Marks & Spencer, are concerned about possible increases in the cost of importing from one of their major hubs in the midst of the worst economic downturn in decades.
Tomorrow’s report will be discussed by the EU’s executive European Commission — which oversees trade policy for the 27-nation bloc — which must then decide by the end of next month whether to propose to member states that they temporarily suspend Sri Lanka’s GSP Plus status.
Any decision would take effect six months from the vote by EU member states.
“It would most likely take effect around June next year,” a commission official said.
WAKE-UP CALL: Firms in the private sector were not taking basic precautions, despite the cyberthreats from China and Russia, a US cybersecurity official said A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday. Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
MISSING: Prosecutors urged the company to move workers out of poor living conditions to hotels, but residents said many workers had already left the town Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking. The announcement came days after labor authorities said they found 163 Chinese workers who had been brought to Brazil irregularly in “slavery-like” conditions at the BYD factory construction site in the northeastern state of Bahia. The workers were employed by contractor Jinjiang Group, which has denied any wrongdoing. Later, the authorities also said the workers were victims of human trafficking,
RSS