EU, Bangladesh launch negotiation for partnership and cooperation agreement

About 25 years ago, Bangladesh had signed a cooperation agreement with the European Union (EU), which was basically about development cooperation.  Now the two parties are going to sign a partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA) to elevate that cooperation to the next level.

With the goal of finalising the agreement, the first round of top level negotiations between Bangladesh and the EU kicked off at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on Thursday.

Bangladesh officials informed on this matter say that following a bargain the agreement might be finalised for signing within the next one and a half years. They hope that the PCA would be finalised for signing after negotiations by June 2026.  

Officials from the foreign affairs ministry say that through signing a legally binding agreement would establish a framework would for Bangladesh’s cooperative relations with the EU.

Ministry officials said that Bangladesh and the EU joined a two-day official talk on the PCA in Brussels yesterday, Thursday. Secretary (East) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Md Nazrul Islam led the Bangladesh delegation to the discussions while the EU side was led by Deputy Managing Director of the EU’s Asia and Pacific Division at the European External Action Service, Paola Pampaloni.

When asked, Nazrul Islam told Prothom Alo that the signing of this agreement will politically elevate Bangladesh’s cooperation with the EU. Once the agreement has been signed, the relations will be fortified even further on various subjects like economy, trade and investment alongside democracy, good governance, security and human rights.

This high-up official from the foreign ministry stated that Dhaka is optimistic about finalising the agreement for signing in June next year after finishing the negotiations. If this goes through, Bangladesh will be the first country in South Asia to have a partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA) with EU.

According to the data provided on EU website, PCA is a legally binding agreement that establishes a framework for cooperation between EU and a partner country.

This includes different subjects including political dialogue, peace and security, good governance and human rights, trade, and financial assistance in the EU partner countries made through the partnership and cooperation agreement.

In other words, supporting the democratic and economic development falls under the radius of this cooperation. A powerful open market economy, ensuring the development of a favourable environment for trade and foreign investment and the matter of strengthening trade relations and cooperation in different sectors are also included in this.

There are about 35 sectors including trade, investments, economic cooperation, democracy, good governance, labour rights, inclusion, defence, cyber security, climate change, energy, fisheries, skilled immigration and agriculture under this agreement.

There was a primary discussion on PCA in Dhaka last November. The main discussions began this time. The cooperation agreement Bangladesh already has with the EU will be replaced by PCA in future when it has been signed. Notably, Bangladesh signed the cooperation agreement with EU back in 2001. That agreement included issues like economy, development, good governance and human rights.

With the goal of expanding the scope of relations between Bangladesh and the EU, it was decided to launch fresh discussion into EU-Bangladesh Partnership and Cooperation Agreement on 25 October 2023. The then prime minister Sheikh Hasina and European Commission (EC) president Ursula von der Leyen were present in that meeting held in Brussels.

In that continuation, the first round of negotiations on the partnership and cooperation agreement was supposed to begin in September last year. However the EU had suspended the PCA agreement discussions considering the situation at hand centering the anti-discrimination student-public movement in Bangladesh. Later when the EU decided to sign a PCA with the interim government there was an informal discussion in Dhaka last November.