Brussels, 17/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - A period of grace of ten more months. This is what the European Parliament called for in a resolution adopted in Strasbourg on 16 April in order to give time to eight African and Caribbean countries from the ACP Group (Africa/Caribbean/Pacific) that have not yet ratified an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the EU. MEPs want these countries to have time to do this before they have duty-free and quota-free access for their products to the European market withdrawn.
Following their rapporteur, David Martin (S&D, United Kingdom), MEPs decided by a large majority (682 votes to 10 against, with 21 abstentions) in favour of postponing until 1 October 2014 the date that the European Commission had set for 1 January 2014 as the cut-off point. This is, in the MEPs' opinion, the flexibility required so as not to heavily penalise countries like Botswana or Namibia that do not benefit from other tariff preference schemes, or countries like Kenya - which is seriously concerned about the predictable impact of such a measure on its economy (particularly in the cut flower industry which will be faced with additional customs tariffs of 23-24%).
“Granting unilateral free market access to specific countries is in breach of WTO rules and was clearly a temporary solution. I can agree that unlimited and unconditional preferences are not a sustainable option, and the time has come to set a deadline. At the same time, some of those ACP countries considered the initially proposed expiry date of 1 January 2014 to be an ultimatum to push them into unsatisfactory agreements”, Martin stated.
Initially it was a postponement of two years that the Parliament sought to give these eight countries (Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Fiji, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Swaziland) so that they might have more time to prepare these progressive trade liberalisation agreements.
The deadline set by the WTO for the conclusion of EPAs that are compatible with WTO rules had been the end of 2007. Since then, 36 ACP countries that have not ratified EPAs have enjoyed duty-free and quota-free access to the EU market as part of the regulation on market access (Regulation no 1528/2007). Some of them are not threatened with having their market access withdrawn as they are among the least developed countries and benefit from the Everything but Arms initiative, or have already ratified an EPA. (AN/transl.fl)