Norma Maldonado on the EU Central America Trade Deal

Since 2007, the European Commission has been negotiating an agreement with a group of Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, with Panama as an observer), a region where 40 per cent of people live on less than US$2 a day. The Commission is desperate to complete this deal and so is piling pressure on Central American countries to finalise it by June 2009.