IT’S been a long and difficult journey but finally last week, the European Union Parliament voted to grant the much-coveted Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Plus status to Pakistan, a move which guarantees Pakistani products, including textiles, duty-free access to the European market until 2017.

The decision is important: access to GSP-Plus status will allow almost 20pc of Pakistani exports to enter the EU market at zero tariff and 70pc at preferential rates.

Islamabad is expected to earn more than $1 billion by utilising the scheme. Using GSP-Plus will put Pakistani exporters on the same footing as their counterparts in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka which already have duty free access to the bloc’s market.As such, there is no doubt: the parliament’s vote is certainly a victory for Pakistan which has tried for years to gain access to GSP-Plus, lobbying not only the European Commission, the EU executive arm, but also key EU member states as well as the increasingly influential European Parliament.

It is worth noting, however, that the years-long campaign almost did not succeed. In a cliff-hanger vote on Dec 12, a total number of 406 members of the European Parliament expressed their support for Pakistan while 186 lawmakers voted against the status.

GSP-Plus is granted to those countries that ratify and implement international conventions relating to human and labour rights, environment and good governance. Those opposed cite Pakistan’s poor human rights record, the low status of women, failure to protect minority rights and the rise of extremism in the country.

Those in favour believe Pakistan needs trade more than aid and that better access to European markets will help bolster the country’s economy and contribute to the battle for sustainable development and the fight against terrorism.

Certainly, Pakistan can pat itself on the back for having succeeded in obtaining the long-elusive goal. As Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif noted, “gaining access to European markets was the topmost priority of the government as part of economic development agenda”. The Pakistani leader was also right to point to the hard work put in by Pakistani officials — but his reference to the lobbying effort by “friends of Pakistan in Europe” is particularly important.

Truth be told, no one deserves as much credit as Sajjad Karim, a Pakistani-British member of the European Parliament who has worked relentlessly to make sure that Pakistan is made part of the GSP-Plus package.

On Thursday, Karim, a member of the British Conservative party hailed the outcome of the European Parliament vote as ‘momentous’, adding: “This will kick-start growth for Pakistan’s textile industry which plays a vital role in supporting the national economy and providing jobs.” Karim also voiced confidence that “this is the first step on a wonderful journey for Pakistan and the EU”.

He should know. As head of the Friends of Pakistan group in the European Parliament, Karim has long battled for a better EU deal for Pakistan, in trade and also beyond. Putting Pakistan on the EU agenda is no easy task, however. And it’s not only because Pakistan is a “hard country”, with neither the size nor clout of either China or India.

The fact is that the EU foreign policy agenda is immensely crowded — and getting even more crowded at every step. Recent events in Ukraine illustrate the problems the EU has in maintaining friends in its own neighbourhood. Events in Kiev have made EU relations with Russia even more unsettled. The winter of discontent in Egypt and other Arab Spring countries, meanwhile, continues to pose a headache for many EU policymakers.

In Asia, the EU priority is to forge stronger relations with China, still viewed as a major export market by European industry and investors. In contrast, relations with India have hit another impasse as the country prepares for elections. As such, hopes for a deal by the end of the year on an EU-India free trade agreement have been put on the backburner.

That leaves little room for focus on Pakistan — although for the moment, the international spotlight on Afghanistan in the run-up to next year’s elections and the drawdown in international forces means that Islamabad is still on the EU foreign policy agenda. At least for the moment.

The challenge for Pakistan — now that it has achieved its goal of gaining access to GSP-Plus — is to make sure that it continues to benefit from EU assistance, trade and reform advice in the years ahead. EU-Pakistan relations need to be made more resilient, sustained and less volatile. The EU was enthusiastic about the results of the Pakistan elections earlier this year, hailing the polls as a sign of the “strong commitment of the Pakistani people to democracy”.

But stronger EU-Pakistan relations hinge on Islamabad’s ability to tackle economic, fiscal and energy reform and take stronger measures to create growth and jobs and reduce poverty. The EU-Pakistan ‘Five-Year Engagement Plan’ agreed on last year focuses on issues such as the respect for and promotion of human rights, including those of minorities, and freedom of religion and speech.

EU policymakers have also underlined the need for improved relations with India and a more constructive role in Afghanistan. Above all, now that the battle to win GSP-Plus status is over, policymakers in Islamabad need to hammer out a new vision for relations with Europe.

The focus on trade and access to markets needs to be replaced with a wider, more modern and more relevant EU-Pakistan partnership which looks beyond trade and aid to areas such as capacity-building, economic and political reform assistance and good governance. Many of these ambitions are in the ‘engagement plan’. Both sides now need to start implementation.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.