On October 30, 2024, the fourth Human Rights Dialogue between the European Union (EU) and the Philippines took place in Manila. The subcommittee meeting on good governance, rule of law, and human rights under the EU-Philippines Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) listed some acknowledgments in a joint press release, such as the importance of protecting human rights defenders and the challenges of so-called “red-tagging” (i.e. branding individuals or organizations as “terrorist”). Moreover, the Philippine government informed that it takes efforts to address the alleged cases of enforced disappearances through its national legislation. The Philippine government condemned extrajudicial killings and emphasized its efforts to hold perpetrators accountable; no specific context was mentioned. However, the press release did not specify any concrete political benchmarks for improving the human rights situation. As a result, it remains unclear what progress is envisioned by the EU to maintain the preferences of the EU’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP+).
The first round of negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) between the EU and the Philippines took place from October 14 to 18, 2024; the second round of negotiations will take place on February 25, 2025. During a trip to the Philippines on December 4, 2024, Niclas Kvarnström, Managing Director of Asia and Pacific of the European External Action Service, emphasized that deepening economic relations with the Philippines is based on fundamental shared values such as human rights.
However, the continuation of the negotiations on the FTA, despite the ongoing difficult human rights situation in the Philippines, and the agreement itself have already been sharply criticized by civil society groups: Joseph Purugganan of Focus on the Global South highlighted the potential negative impact of the FTA on the land rights of indigenous peoples in the Philippines, among others, in an article published on March 23, 2024. In an interview with the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in Manila on July 3, 2024, Josua Mata from SENTRO explained possible negative consequences of the FTA for intellectual property rights and workers’ rights.
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