A European Union (EU) mission prepares to review the progresses so far Bangladesh has made on human rights and labour standards, officials say, as an eligibility test for trade facility.
The team will especially review the implementing status of the National Action Plan on labour standards reflected in the core international conventions enumerated in the EU's Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Regulation.
The EU-one of Bangladesh's biggest trading partners and markets as a bloc--is sending the reappraisal mission as a follow-up to the enhanced engagement's monitoring mission in the framework of the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme on trade accessibility.
Led by Jordi Curell Gotor, director for international affairs in the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) of the EU, will visit Bangladesh middle of March.
Others on the five-member delegation include Benedikt Bünker, policy officer of the DG EMPL of the EU, Ivo Schutte, deputy head of division, Asia and the Pacific Regional Affairs and South Asia of the European External Action Service, and Alessandro Tonoli, policy officer, the Directorate-General for Trade of the European Commission.
The EU team will hold talks with the officials of the ministry of labour and employment and also the ministry of commerce to get the updates, sources say.
A senior official at the labour ministry told the FE Sunday the EU has closely been monitoring the labour-and human-rights standards in Bangladesh since the Rana Plaza incident back in 2013.
And since then, Bangladesh has been implementing various rules and regulations to ensure labour standards as prescribed by the EU and also in many other international conventions.
"However," he says, "many such standards remained unimplemented, which Bangladesh, being a least-developed country, cannot execute so easily."
A senior commerce ministry official says as Bangladesh is graduating to developing-country status, the country is now expecting that the EU will grant the GSP Plus facility to help pursue sustainable development and good governance.
He, however, feels that like the many other aspirants, Bangladesh will also have to uphold 27 international conventions on human rights, labour rights, environment, and good governance to be eligible for the EU's GSP Plus scheme.
Thus, the EU is now keeping Bangladesh under special monitoring to check in what extent the country made improvement in maintaining the two gauges: human rights and labour rights.
"Getting EU's GSP Plus facility would not be possible for Bangladesh unless realistic improvements can be made on labour-rights issues," says the official.
