Bamako, 19/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - The very great concern expressed by MEPs and their counterparts of the 79 ACP countries (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) towards inequitable liberalisation of multilateral trade are proportionate to the hope that they place in the ACP/EU partnership for helping ACP countries resist the shock of globalisation by uniting their forces to combat poverty - the main aim of the Cotonou Agreement - and achievement of the Millennium Goals in the run up to 2015. In Bamako, where the ACP/EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly opened, concern mixed with hope was a predominant feature of the debates and workshops organised on a multitude of shared concerns. Such concerns range from the crisis that affects the cotton sector in African producer countries such as Mali, the host country, to the feared impact that future economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and ACP regions will have on the fragile economies of countries mostly among the least developed. They also include the continuing conflict in, for example, Darfur - where massacres and mass violations of human rights must cease so that the populations may take advantage of the comprehensive peace agreement signed in January between North and South Sudan -, and in the African Great Lake Regions, where progress toward stabilisation is marred by uncertainty.
As debates opened, Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, President of the Mali National Assembly, welcomed the constituent charter on baptismal funds in Bamako of the ACP parliamentary assembly, which bears witness to the JPA's growing political maturity and increased visibility. While paying tribute to the commitment of Jean Robert Goulongana, former Secretary General of the ACP Group, and Commissioners Poul Nielson and Pascal Lamy for the ACP cause, Mr Keita said he was “encouraged by the vision” of their successors, evoking above all the aspiration of Peter Mandelson for “prosperity and social justice on a global scale, within a framework of rules” and the arrival of Commissioner Louis Michel, which has delighted an “immense majority of ACP countries”. He also, however, spoke of the negotiation of economic partnership agreements with “enormous stakes”. If ECOWAS and Mauritania have chosen to negotiate collectively on the establishment of a free trade area with the EU, with the priority of sustainable development and poverty reduction, the transversal problems are the same for the six ACP regions, he stressed. Despite the ACP/EU partnership, the share of ACP products on the European market has continued to fall (from 6.7% in 1999 to 2.8%), hence the need to lift the constraints on ACP economies and strengthen ACP trade capacities and supply. EU enlargement, its new Constitution and its new financial perspectives for 2007-2013 must not, Keita says, bring the Cotonou achievements into question. On the contrary, they must be adapted to global changes. This means that improvement must be made to the effectiveness of aid and procedures, and the availability of financial resources must be ensured, a major concern of ACP countries in the assumption that the European Development Fund will be budgetised. The joint resolution to be adopted by the JPA on Thursday will be the intermediary for this. Evoking the continuation of WTO negotiations, Mr Keita noted ACP concerns about how cotton will be dealt with in the agricultural package. “We have great hope that the sub-committee will take these stakes for the ACP countries into account”, he said. The same is true for the sugar industry. He said the EU must take account of the multiple constraints on ACP economies. The level of prices and the time taken to carry out reforms are of vital importance.
Amadou Toumani Touré, President of the Republic of Mali, welcomed the ACP/EU partnership and, citing the “precious aid of the EU to Sahel countries facing the threat of crickets and today managing the disastrous results of this calamity, especially the lack of food supply security due to the very bad harvests” deplored the fact that “generally speaking, the level of mobilisation of our partners could have been higher and above all more diligent”. Speaking on the crisis in the cotton industry, because of a number of factors including subsidies, the president stressed that the crisis placed nearly 15 million people living directly or indirectly from cotton in West and Central Africa in a precarious situation, including three and a half million people from Mali. He welcomed the initiative taken by the EU in this respect for a partnership for rehabilitation of the branch, and reiterated the call from agriculture and trade ministers of the African producer countries in favour of immediately setting up a fund to support survival of the sector and support a higher rate of local cotton processing. “In Mali, we process less than 3% of our cotton while we are the leading producer in Africa with an average of 500,000 tonnes annually. And yet, we do not manufacture a single tee- shirt in Bamako, which deprives us of all added value, a source of jobs and wealth. Our ambition is to have a local processing rate of 10-15% in the medium term. We shall thus go from the status of exporter country of raw cotton to that of exporter of finished products”, he said. Mr Touré went on to say that, as he saw it, the aim of development is the wellbeing of the population, with special emphasis on employment for the young. He also cited the promotion of women. “In Africa, investing in development also means investing in conflict prevention”, he said, paying tribute to the African Union “which deserves support and assistance for work undertaken in Darfur”. On the subject of Togo, he stressed the importance of credible elections that ”will be one of the essential factors of stability”.
Speaking of the Ivory Coast, he expressed hope of reconciliation on the basis of the Pretoria agreements and congratulated the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, for his work of mediation, calling on “Ivorian brothers to give peace a fresh chance to the benefit of the Ivorian people and the countries of the sub-region”. He said he wished to see this glimmer of peace as a sign that Africa can resolve its conflicts to devote all its energy to what is essential, i.e. development. Development requires increased support from the continent's partners, especially for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The European Union is a safe ally, that will not fail, President Touré said, concluding “We are convinced that, together, we can consolidate this partnership for raising the new challenges”.
Sharon Hay Webster (Jamaica), new ACP co-president, said she was encouraged by the “conflicts being resolved” in Africa “as civil war, inter-State conflicts undermine growth and compromise international security”. Nonetheless, she added, “Ivory Coast remains a major concern”. Welcoming the return to constitutional order in Togo, she announced a JPA mission for presidential elections on 24 April. The co-president also urged for more equitable rules as a framework for multilateral trade, mainly for bananas, sugar and cotton, and evoked the “the plight of our poor people in rural areas”. These concerns will be amplified with the feared impact of the proposal for a REACH regulation concerning the new European policy for chemical products, which is likely to affect the mining sector of two-thirds of ACP countries. Ms Webster said: ”We are launching an appeal for REACH not to form a new non-tariff barrier to the economic development of ACP countries”.
Glenys Kinnock, British Labour member, who co-chairs the JPA for the EU, congratulated the president of Mali on his stable country “where freedom of expression reigns”. On the other hand, she expressed concern about Sudan “where the situation remains serious”, Togo, the African Great Lakes region, and Zimbabwe, where political parties consider that the conditions in which recent elections were held were not equitable. Stressing that the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is not possible without economic and social progress, the co-president welcomed the fact that 2005 is the year for development within the UN summit prospects, in September this year in New York. She stressed that the MDGs are a model for North/South cooperation and that poverty is not only an African problem but a problem facing the whole world. She called to mind that over half of the world's population lives with less than one dollar a day and with a life expectancy of 48 and that being poor means “having to walk for hours to fetch water, children who will never hold a pen, and who will never come near a computer”. When one speaks of malaria and AIDS, which kill over one million people a year, and all the conflicts, it is not astonishing that “Africa is often described as a desert, a place that favours conflicts, disease and poverty”. And yet, “major progress is possible”, Ms Kinnock stressed, as one can see from the 150% rise in Tanzania's education budget, reduction by half of poverty in South Africa between 1994 and 2001, and the successful campaign in Cuba against infant mortality and AIDS. And yet, one cannot wave a magic wand. “The MDGs are overall objectives, tailor-made for the different countries, with one constant goal: education for all. MDGs are our manifesto for development, and as representatives of the people, we must call our governments to account”, the co-president said, urging for the EU to focus on the debt/trade/official development aid triangle, and on the governments of beneficiary countries to be just as accountable before their populations. Doubling of European ODA (Official Development Aid) by 2010 would be a move forward without precedent in the past 30 years, but would still not add up to half of the cost of the war in Iraq, Ms Kinnock noted, calling on the parliamentary representatives to press for all former EU Member States to respect their commitments and for the new Member States to fix binding objectives. In a vibrant oral defence in favour of cancellation of the debt which is necessary to achieve the MDGs, Ms Kinnock commented that many ACP countries spend, each day, more for debt servicing than for education and health. She went on to denounce “those who give with one hand and take away with the other” and the injustice “of the debt contracted by governments that are not elected and that reign in tyranny”. Convinced that developing countries, even more than the rich countries, need a multilateral system based on rules, Ms Kinnock said farm subsidies of rich countries must be phased out and, with a view to the ministerial WTO conference in Hong Kong, she said it must be ensured that “all countries take part in multilateral trade in a profitable and lasting manner”, especially for sugar and bananas. Ms Kinnock also urged for the JPA to be associated with the EPA surveillance mechanism set in place by the European Commission.