HYDERABAD: At the end of a civil society consultation called by delegates at the 19th council meeting of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) following a demand from the representatives of several organisations and farmers’ unions to disclose the proposals being tabled by them, the latter expressed that lack of transparency and inadequate responses on the part of the delegates continue.
Jyoti Panday from Electronic Frontier Foundations who was there at the meeting to seek clarity on the proposals framed for the agreement for E-commerce sector, said, “First of all, e-commerce norms should not be in trade agreements. On top of that, the secrecy with which the agreement is being discussed is threatening. The entire text of the planning for the agreement should be made open to the public.
The delegates should make the summit more inclusive. I leave the consultation very dissatisfied. My questions remain unanswered.” Activist Pradip Chatterjee representing the cause of fishermen said, “None of the answers provided to us was backed by data. I could say that it was not a consultation but more of a formality on the behalf of our organisers. We were only given assurances that RCEP won’t affect people’s livelihood but apart from what has been leaked, delegates refrained from disclosing information.”
Meanwhile, several local farmers’ rights activists and farmers’ unions from Telangana protesting RCEP, who had declared to boycott the consultation on Monday, released an official statement. “We declare that we do not recognise this as a consultation at all and we boycott the event. Some of us came to know a few days ago that this event is being held at the Novotel Convention Centre during the 19th Round talks of RCEP at Hyderabad. We are shocked that its organisers have not taken any step to do a meaningful consultation,” said the statement.
RCEP is a mega-regional trade deal being negotiated among 16 countries across Asia-Pacific to be held in Hyderabad in a few days. “If adopted, RCEP will cover half the world’s population, including 420 million small family farms who produce 80 per cent of the region’s food. If the agreement comes into being, the recent episodes of red gram farmers in TS agitating over not being able to recover costs, after FCI stopped procuring produce, or chilli farmers’ inability to sell their produce for lack of demand, will see a repeat,” claim protesting groups.