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Overpromising and under-delivering

26 Sep 2021

Before Sri Lanka could even assess its performance and the overall developments at the recent United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session, the country is now required to deal with a European Union (EU) delegation visiting the country to hold some decisive discussions that may have a direct impact on the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) trade concession. The EU delegation is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka from today (27 September) to 5 October, and meet representatives from civil society, trade unions and government. What Sri Lanka is facing at present is a risk of losing GSP+ concession. In 2010, the country lost it, as the then-Sri Lankan government and the EU were not able to agree on certain human rights-related matters. In 2017, the country regained the GSP+ concession, after the then government promised to implement a number of international conventions pertaining to good governance, human rights and labour rights. However, we cannot expect the EU to treat us the same way it did back in 2017, as the current situation is different from the situation in 2017. In 2017, Sri Lanka sought the reinstatement of the GSP+ concession as a country concerned about rectifying the flaws in its laws and policies and improving them in accordance with internationally accepted standards. However, now, Sri Lanka is a country that is trying to protect the GSP+ concession despite not having put enough effort into fulfilling the promises it gave to regain this concession. The EU will take these matters into account; more specifically, the discrepancies between what was promised and what was delivered. In fact, Sri Lanka’s action or inaction after 2017 would receive more attention than what Sri Lanka would promise to do in the coming few years. We will have to wait to see whether the little the government has done to fulfil its obligations and commitments, such as looking into amending the controversial Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, would help the country enjoy the GSP+ concession in the next few years. As the economy struggles to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the country can’t afford to lose the GSP+ concession. Reviving the exports sector with no such support would be extremely difficult. We have to understand that we are living in an era of a deadly pandemic, production activities including those contributing to the exports sector have been affected, and the country is in need of export income more than before. In this context, the GSP+ concession’s importance to Sri Lanka has changed drastically, and it has now become more of a necessity, as every relief that helps boost and maintain the country’s exports income is important to manage the declining foreign reserves. In addition, for the country and the people, the government needs to seriously look into reasonable, necessary, and feasible changes to laws and policies recommended by the EU. This time, the conditions to which Sri Lanka will have to agree would be stricter than before, as the country has a history of failing to fulfil its commitments. Therefore, the incumbent government needs to be more careful when dealing with the EU and think twice about what it promises to do in order to retain the GSP+ concession. It is better to promise what can be delivered, rather than promising more and under-delivering, which could damage relations as well as the value the international community attaches to the words of the Sri Lankan Government.


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