Main events for the Week: 19/01/2/2015 - 23/01/2015

European Parliament

19-20 January: Committee on Foreign Affairs

20 January : Committee on Development, Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction

21-22 January: Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

21-22 January: Committee on International Trade

21-22 January: Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

21-24 January: Committee on Development

21-24 January: Committee on Fisheries

26 January: Committee on Foreign Affairs

27 January: Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Extraordinary meeting (Public Hearing)

Council of the EU

19 January: Foreign Affairs Council

The CTA Brussels Weblog has been the portal of EU-ACP policy news, providing articles on several different issues: ACP-EU trade, rural development, aid effectiveness, environment, regional fisheries, food security, food policy, agriculture, development, climate change and energy. In addition to this news service, CTA weblog will also provide ACP regional trade news. The main stories for the week are featured in our newsletter and all stories can be found in our 'Regional Trade' archive.

On Friday 9th January, the DEVCO InfoPoint held the first lunch time conference of the European Year for Development on "Research and Innovation: For Sustainable Agriculture and Food and Nutrition Security".  Mr. Jean Pierre Halkin Head of Unit for - Rural Development, Food and Nutrition Security (DEVCO C1) opened the conference and Mr. David Radcliffe Policy Office for Rural Development, Food and Nutrition Security (, DEVCO C1) presented the key themes of the DEVCO paper on  "Research and Innovation: For Sustainable Agriculture and Food and Nutrition Security". 

Over 9,000 Portuguese companies currently export to Angola about 2000 Angolan companies, are at least part-owned by Portuguese investors, according to figures from Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP). The same figures also showed that two-way trade amounted to 7 billion euros in 2013, and of that total 3.1 billion euros were goods exports and 1.4 billion euros were services exports from Portugal to Angola.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) signed the new fisheries agreement between the European Union and Sao Tome and Principe, authorising 34 vessels from Spain, France and Portugal to fish in the country’s waters. The new partnership agreement protocol provides fishing opportunities for 28 tuna seiners and six fishing vessels for surface trolling, broken down by vessels from Spain, France and Portugal and was approved by 566 votes in favour, 43 against and 68 abstentions.