Josiah from Edinburgh SPEAK on lobbying MEPs on EPAs (acronym-tastic!)

After having learned about Economic Partnership Agreements at a conference this year, two members of SPEAK Edinburgh and two from People and Planet decided to attempt to lobby their MEP about them. It was through this discussion of what to say to him that I joined the group. The meeting was quite easy to arrange although, like most MEPs, our representative’s schedule is quite packed travelling between Brussels and Scotland twice a week. But luckily we were given a meeting with Alyn Smith quite quickly. We decided to SPEAK to him about EPAs and their impact on ACP (African Caribbean Pacific) countries as many ACP economic agreements end on 31st December 2007. Although being unsure initially of how the meeting would go, Alyn was behind us from the beginning and has already been fighting against EPAs in the European Parliament. We learned much about an MEP’s role as well and helped us understand the need to lobby MPs about European issues as well; it takes both governments to push anything through. When we got onto the topic of corporate accountability (where as a network we focus a lot of our attention!), he expressed his opinion that it was important, but that EPAs was the immediate priority and he will discuss this area with us in the new year – so we’ll be back in touch! Lobbying your MEP is more than lobbying - it’s educational as well. For more information about lobbying your MEP contact the Network Support Team for the new MEP lobbying guidelines handout and also check out the Big Dress Campaign booklet!