ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) countries which are not among the group of least advanced countries have until 1 October to ratify an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union or their preferential access to the EU market will be withdrawn by the European Commission, by means of a delegated act under the terms of the regulation on market access (1528/2007).
This course of action and the very use of delegated acts drew the disapproval of left-wing MEPs during the course of a debate in the European Parliament’s international trade (INTA) committee on Wednesday 31 August. The MEPs felt that such an eventuality could be damaging to political dialogue and development in Africa.
The committee was debating the Commission’s delegated act amending Annex I of Regulation 1528/2007. Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland all find themselves under a sword of Damocles. The GUE/NGL Group called for the rejection of the six delegated acts, action opposed by the EPP Group.
“The issue of delegated acts is political. Requiring a country to ratify something is a political act”, argued Helmut Scholz (GUE/NGL, Germany). “The EPA with the East African Community presents a number of weaknesses. If one refers to the EU-Africa strategy, it is clearly stated that our economic and political relations with the countries of Africa must support regional cooperation and the development of the countries concerned.” Furthermore, the treaty says that all policies must be consistent with development policy. “These delegated acts run counter to the spirit of the principles of the EU”, he said, suggesting that the October date must be considered with possibilities for dialogue. Daniel Caspary (EPP, Germany) retorted that the deadline of 1 October 2016 was “already a compromise”.
Avoiding an injustice for Kenya. The European Commission tried to provide reassurance, pointing out that it was unlikely that five of the six countries would experience any difficulties “since Botswana, Swaziland and Namibia have ratified the agreement and the South African parliament has just ratified it on 30 August” (see EUROPE 11564).
Kenya, however, has yet to sign the agreement. Several MEPs argued that it would be unfair to “punish” this country when it had done everything that was required for signing an EPA about which it was unhappy from the start and that “it’s its partners (Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania) that have let it down”, observed David Martin (S&D, UK). “I’m unhappy about this move by the Commission which has come at a very bad time, at the end of extremely difficult negotiations with the three African regions. This bullying tactic is just one in a long line of measures to bring pressure to bear on a number of African countries that have the audacity to call into question the Commission’s demands and delay the signing of the EPAs”, raged Maria Arena (S&D, Belgium).
Opposed to action of this sort in negotiations, Arena called for “greater consistency between EU trade policy and the European External Action Service”, underlining that, for the European Parliament, it would be unthinkable, for example, to approve an agreement with Burundi, a country against which the EU has decided to trigger Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement (see EUROPE 11511). Furthermore, if the plenary session vote for South Africa does, in fact, take place on 13 September, the 1 October deadline could be met. However, “for East and West Africa, there is no time set in Parliament before October”, she pointed out. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)