Brussels, 10/09/2010 (Agence Europe) - Meeting for the first time as an EU “Trade Council”, the European Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Friday 10 September shared the European Commission's concern about the lack of progress in the EU's talks with ACP states (Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific) on the signing of definitive, regional economic partnership agreements (EPAs) that started in 2002 and were initially supposed to be signed with the six ACP regions in December 2007 when the World Trade Rule exemptions ran out. The negotiations are still far from reaching a conclusion and without any significant political impulse, the prospects of them being concluded by November 2010 (when the third EU-Africa summit takes place) seem highly remote.
The political debate by the EU trade and/or foreign ministers on progress in the talks demonstrated that they all wanted to give the European Commission greater leeway to breathe new life into the talks and ensure the success of the EU-Africa summit in Libya on 29-30 November. After the meeting in Brussels, EU foreign minister Steven Vanackere (who had chaired the meeting) and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said that interim agreements had been signed with most ACP states but definitive agreements were still a long way off. They said they had sent a clear signal for the talks to get started again and wanted to boost trade and build closer ties with the African continent. They said they wanted to reconcile foreign trade and development. De Gucht said there was a genuine political will to find a solution, but both men agreed that it was premature to start threatening recalcitrant ACP states that have not yet signed deals but benefit from preferential access to the EU market of withdrawing those rights. Vanackere told reporters that things had not yet gone that far.
Full or interim EPAs have been signed with 36 ACP states. The negotiators to replace interim EPAs with full EPAs are continuing the more progress that is made, the more difficult it becomes for some countries and regions to formally sign the already initialled interim deals because the interim deals include points that have changed since then. Of the 8 deals concluded, only 6 have been formally signed, namely the full EPA with Cariforum and interim EPAs with Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Southern Africa (but only partially because Namibia has not yet signed), the Pacific (but Fiji has not notified that it is implementing it), and East and South Africa (only partially because Zambia and the Comores have not signed). The negotiations with West Africa and East Africa have made the most progress but the October 2009 deadline was not met by West Africa.
To get the ball rolling, the Commission would like to set a deadline for the conclusion of all EPAs; amend the 2007 EU regulation on market access to remove ACP countries that refuse to sign interim EPAs to ensure they can no longer export to the EU without abiding by import duties and quotas; and examine the option of signing incomplete EPAs (that don't cover investment or services) that include a timeline for completing the deals. These ideas are set out in a joint letter to the Council of Ministers from Karel De Gucht and Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs to prepare the ground for political debate with EU trade ministers first and then with EU development ministers at their meeting on 22 October 2010.
During the debate, Finland said it “fully agreed” with the Commission's analysis and called for flexibility, focusing first on trade in products over which agreement had already been reached on the scale of ambition to be sought, for trade aid to be increased and for packages of measures to be designed for the various countries. Sweden wants WTO rules to be respected and likes the idea of a deadline, but says it is important not to sacrifice the level of ambition or the content. Spain backed the Commission, arguing that countries with open markets are doing better than others in the economic crisis. Germany wants greater flexibility because little progress has been made to date. In order to avoid compromising the EU-Africa summit, Africa says a deadline has to be set, things must be made crystal clear and people must stick to their positions.
The Netherlands wants the European Commission to pull out the stops to find a solution. Denmark calls for development-friendly solutions for ACP countries, while Ireland hoped a “sympathetic time frame” could be found and the establishment of a climate of political trust between EU and ACP negotiators. As far as Poland is concerned, the ACP states are not really ready to open up markets on the basis of the EPAs, wanting to keep preferential treatment under the Cotonou Agreement. Poland says that for this reason, it might be a good idea to consider offering SPG along with trade aid. France commented that there was a foul air in the negotiating climate only a few weeks ahead of the EU-Africa summit, with fragmented regional integration, and therefore pragmatism was required. The United Kingdom stressed the need to be reasonable and not rush into things because it would take at least six months to see whether the planned flexibility was acceptable. (A.N./transl.fl)