EBO-GHANA, EBO WORLDWIDE NETWORK ANNUAL MEETING AT THE EUROPEAN UNION IN BRUSSELS
Nico van Staalduinen, Executive Director of EBO-Ghana represented Ghana at the EBOWWN in Brussels in meetings with the European Commission and European Parliamentarians.
Highlight of the meetings were a Question and Answer session with the former EU Trade Commissioner, former Head of the World Bank and current Trade Advisor to the EU Professor Pascal Lamy during which Mr. van Staalduinen could ask about responses and aid of the European Union on Ghana’s attempts to block Free Trade and Investments through Local Content Policies.
The subject had not only received in depth response by Pascal Lamy, but he is also willing to attend a meeting on that subject in Ghana.
Besides having other meetings the next highlight of the annual EU EBO meetings was the full commitment of Ambassador Angelos Pangratis who has been appointed as the EU representative on Economic Diplomacy, in which the European Union commits to join its diplomatic efforts hand in hand with its economic interests.
Angelos Pangratis has been in contact with Mr. Van Staalduinen several days after his appointment last year and he acknowledged that EBO is the transition tool between EU delegations and the business communities in non-EU countries and stretched the necessity to roll out EBO’s to the rest of the non-EU countries where the European Union has delegations.
He also touched upon the advocacy subject and confirmed that EBOs are in pass with the European Trade Interest and since External EU Trade and Trade Policies are EU related and not EU-Member State related, EBO is the only institution that should be involved with EU advocacy and not Individual EU- Member States.
Renato Pacheco, Chairman of EBOWWN stated in the closing remarks of the meetings that the confirmation of EBO as the advocacy organization in non-EU countries was a landmark recognition of EBO as a valuable partner of the European Union in non-European Union members states.
The meetings ended Wednesday 20th June and the next bi-annual meeting is planned for November of which the organization will choose the location between Brazil and Moldova.
