Sri Lanka is facing a risk of losing lucrative European Union trade concessions due to the island nation’s failure to change the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the German Ambassador to Colombo said.
The Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) trade benefits have helped the island nation’s top export revenue earner, garments and brought more foreign currencies from the European Union nations.
The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in October last year said they will assess progress made on Sri Lanka’s commitments for the $500 million GSP+ trade concession “very soon”, with a report due to be released early 2023.
However, the EU has strongly requested the government to repeal the PTA which was used to detain suspects allegedly involved in terrorism during and after the end of a 26-year civil war. Successive Sri Lankan governments also have used the law to suppress their dissents.
“Sri Lanka risks losing EU trade concession over failures to replace PTA,” German Ambassador Holger Seubert told a select group of journalists in Colombo on Saturday (18).
“Several Times Promised”
“Sri Lanka has several times promised to the EU and Germany that they will bring the PTA in line with international standards. This phase of GSP+ is coming to an end and there is a risk that Sri Lanka might lose it. Sri Lanka cannot afford to lose it at this juncture.”
The EU has long demanded to repeal the law that could detain anybody for three months without any legal access.
The EU parliament resolved that the GSP+ must be scrapped for Sri Lankan exports unless the government took action to repeal the PTA, which allows indefinite detention of individuals without being produced in courts.
Earlier, only the ethnic minority Tamils in Sri Lanka’s north demanded to repeal the law as they were targeted during the war.
However, the same demand has now come from Sinhala majority south July last year after two of the protesting student leaders, including a Buddhist monk, were detained under the PTA.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was accused of crushing the protest movement last year, had used PTA extensively to curtail the demonstrations after he was elected as the president through an unprecedented parliament vote.
The government has said it will replace PTA with a broader National Security Act, but there has been no timeline given, analysts say.
“Lot of work going behind the curtain,” to address the PTA issue Ambassador Seubert said
Source: Economynext
