A coalition of civil society organisations in the Middle East and North Africa have published a statement jointly criticising the evaluation study of six Association Agreements (AAs) between the EU and Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. Describing the approach of the study as “highly unsatisfactory”, the declaration by 24 civil society organisations points to a number of key problematic areas:

• The EU Directorate-General for Trade determined that its own data and configurations would be used to run the macroeconomic model of assessment (MIRAGE), therefore meaning that consultancies were recruited to merely analyse their result. This is therefore not an “independent” evaluation study of the AAs and, 24 organisations conclude that, the method imposed was unsuitable to analyse the AAs and favour an empirically based method.

• Civil society inclusion was insufficient in the evaluation of the AAs and its conclusions did not consider civil society recommendations. There needs to be genuine, continuous and meaningful involvement of a wide range of organisations throughout the entire study.

• The evaluation study does not substantively address the issue of sustainable development. According to the signatories of the declaration, it is not easy to measure economic and social sustainability with the model employed, due also to the lack of empirical analysis. For example, the study does not include an in-depth analysis into the consequences and impact of each AA.