Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has begun an 11-day official tour that will include talks at the European Commission (EC) headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
The minister is also scheduled visit Latvia and Great Britain.
Top of the minister’s agenda are discussions about Sri Lanka’s uncertain GSP Plus status and the country’s human rights situation.
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| Rohitha Bogollagama |
The minister will meet, among others, the new European Commissioner for Trade, Catherine Ashton; the Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union, Javier Solana; the EU Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferraro-Waldner, and the President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering.
Sri Lanka is one of several countries that come under the European Union’s GSP Plus preferential programme, which grants developing countries access to the markets of developed countries. GSP Plus trade concessions cover several thousand export items, but chiefly garment industry goods.
However, the EC has meanwhile launched an investigation to determine whether Sri Lanka has complied with 27 core UN and ILO conventions on human and labour rights and international conventions relating to the environment, as well as principles of governance.
Last October, when Sri Lanka applied for an extension of its GSP Plus status, the EC said it wanted to send a team to Sri Lanka to ascertain whether Colombo had implemented the core conventions.
During his visit to the UK, Mr. Bogollagama will address the Sri Lanka Association at Oxford University.
Minister Bogollagama is being accompanied by an entourage of 11 – four members of his ministerial staff and seven
others. |
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