Brussels, 12/10/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPS), as negotiated between the EU and six ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) regions, are not welcomed by the ACP governments and civil society - as demonstrated by a conference organised on this subject in Brussels on 12 October by South Center, an NGO based in Geneva that represents 49 developing countries.
ACP trade ministers and representatives of the ACP civil society gathering at the conference stated their concern about the turn that talks had taken as, they said, these talks were more geared towards the European Commission's trading concerns than to the development interests of the ACP populations. Hence their call for a total and complete review of the talks by end 2006, involving all ACP regions and tackling all issues relevant for conducting negotiations and implementing EPAs. Hence, also, their request that the date set for concluding agreements be deferred to take effect in 2008, through the extension of the derogation to WTO rules. All said they were convinced that it was impossible for ACP States to sign EPAs at the end of 2007, as there were insufficient guarantees that such agreements, which are supposed to result in free trade in the long term, will be the development instruments that they are supposed to be. If the interests of the developing countries cannot be moved forward and their legitimate request for special and differentiated treatment included in the rules of multilateral trade, then the delay taken by the WTO in Doha Round talks must at least serve to rid ACP States of their complexes, as they do not feel ready to conclude in the time set. This was essentially what Professor Yah Tandon, the managing director of South Center, said when summarising the debate. He said the negotiation process underway is neither just, nor transparent, nor equitable. Its agenda is implemented under Commission pressure. The end 2007 deadline for concluding EPAs will not be kept if the ACPs want to bring these agreements back to development, he said, adding that the WTO has already failed to keep a number of deadlines. “So what does it matter if we miss one?”, he asked.
Ms Billie Miller, Foreign Minister and Minister for International Trade in Barbados, who chaired the ACP ministerial committee on trade issues, said the idea of having recourse to denunciation of the agreement is not the road to follow. She said they had embarked on the process and that they should go on with it albeit in a different manner. “We must stay at the table and seek to change things”, she said. Supporting a constructive approach, Ms Miller nonetheless spoke of the difficulties encountered in the negotiation underway between the EU and Cariforum, including, in particular: - the different conception of development targets (the European Commission is convinced that development is the strengthening of regional integration and trade liberalisation, doubled with more or less strict rules on trade and investment and a limited EU offer to back development of ACP capacities. Such a view of things pays no heed to the structural failings and the lack of flexibility in the offer put forward by the vulnerable economies, which is why Cariforum calls for special and differentiated treatment, flexibility in trade rules, more effective access to European markets, measures to support development of trading capacities and EU commitments concerning support for development; - the unrealistic position of the Commission, according to which the EPAs support regional integration and will therefore attract investment and stimulate development when in fact it would be more suitable to tackle, as an urgent priority, the constraints weighing down on supply, so that the competitiveness of economic operators can increase, before any consideration of a reciprocal opening up of the markets. Michael Gidney, policy director at Traidcraft, a leading British firm in fair trade said that the exercise in reviewing negotiations was the last chance on offer for putting the EPAs at the service of the poor. Echoing the Malawi Ambassador who wanted ACP ministers to be “more active” in negotiations, a representatives for the Sud NGO said that they needed to “avoid reinventing reinventing the wheel” and that the Nairobi Declaration adopted on 14 April 2006 by trade ministers from the African Union, was very clear. It stipulates that in effect, EPAs should be coherent with the objectives and economic integration process in Africa and that no African country should be worse off under the new trade regime as laid out in the Cotonou Agreement and that Article 24 of the GATT should be correctly amended to allow for the necessary special and differentiated treatment, a principle of non reciprocity and explicit flexibilities, compatible with the asymmetry required for making EPA into development instruments. It also underlines that conclusions of the market access aspects of the EPA should take place upon completion of the amendment.
Calling for cohesion in the ACP group in relation to conclusion of the EPA deadlines, Mr Mamadou Diop, Senegal's minister for trade declared, “We have to discuss matters honestly with the Europeans. We have carried out impact studies on Western Africa. Are we going to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck? We have to remain at the table but we cannot be made to sign until all the preliminaries are in place”. These preliminaries are in the interest of the ACP people. As a supporter of Plan B for ACP governments, if the negotiations go down the wrong road, Mr Diop said that he was hoping for an investment from Heads of ACP countries in the large inter-connection projects for infrastructure, as a stimulus to intra-ACP trade.