ESA rejects European bid to bring Comesa into trade talks
The East African, Nairobi
ESA rejects European bid to bring Comesa into trade talks
By Julius Barigaba, Special Correspondent
13 March 2007
The future of talks between 16 Eastern and Southern African (ESA) countries and the European Union hangs in the balance after the ESA countries accused the EU of smuggling a document into the agenda at their recent meeting in the Burundi capital, Bujumbura.
The controversial document is an Economic Partnership Agreement EPA review, which the EU presented to the negotiators to determine the region’s preparedness for an EPA three weeks ago.
Sources at the meeting, said the document, based on a Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) document was rejected. It sought to use results of the Comesa review to represent ESA’s preparedness.
“They [EU] were trying to use the Comesa secretariat to act behind ESA’s back,” a source said. “But the negotiators represent ESA, not Comesa.”
At the heart of the matter is the EU’s growing impatience over ESA’s dilly-dallying on the negotiations. At the Bujumbura meeting, the EU wanted ESA countries to be bundled under Comesa, a development that would remove a the impediment of multiple blocs in the region.
This would also hasten negotiations and force the ESA countries to drop their unyielding stance. In 2001, ESA started negotiations for a new trade regime, to come into effect at the expiry of the EU-ACP Cotonou Agreement, reached in 2000 to give ESA countries duty free access to European markets till December 31, 2007.
The new trade arrangement - commonly referred to as the EPA - compels countries to reciprocate market access, an issue that poor countries are still opposed to for fear European countries will dump goods from the EU in Africa.
Out of the six ACP regions, ESA remains farthest from concluding the talks, while other regions have entered the final phase of the negotiations.
Sources said ESA’s lack of a legal mandate is a source of discomfort for the EU, as the European body looks to access ACP markets once the present Cotonou Agreement expires.
Unlike the Economic Community of West African States or Comesa, ESA is not a legally constituted bloc, and so cannot hasten the negotiation process; its decisions are not binding either.
However, the EU’s alleged attempt to use a Comesa review during the meeting was seen as an underhand scheme to rein in the region’s diverse trade blocs that have till now remained a hurdle for the talks, which the EU wants concluded.
The region’s negotiators would not accept the EU’s proposal because the region decided at the Khartoum meeting of 2005 to maintain the ESA negotiation bloc.
The bloc comprises Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sudan, Eritrea, Comoros, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
While several countries in Comesa belong to ESA, using a Comesa study is not representative enough, and is likely to give misleading results. At the same time, several ESA countries belong to other regional blocs, namely the East African Community, the Inter Governmental Authority on Development and the Southern African Development Community.
Membership of multiple economic blocs in the region is one of the sticky issues that caused the first phase of the trade negotiations to drag on. Trade advisors at the EU secretariat in Brussels said last month that because of multiple trade blocs, a high degree of harmonisation was not possible for ESA, it was up to the region to decide which blocs to keep out of ESA.
“The region should decide who is in and who is out. If there is any crossover from ESA, it should only be a good one,” said Peter Thompson, head of trade negotiations at the secretariat.
Now, the EU seems to be shifting the goal posts as it brings a proposal to use a Comesa review to make a case for ESA, observers said.
Despite the EU move, the Bujumbura meeting launched the second phase of the trade talks in which the negotiations will enter a critical stage.
There are clusters of issues to be adopted for the final stage, at the top of which is development and trade facilitation, under which ESA countries want the EU to make a commitment on more funding for the EPAs. However, sources said the EU is still against this.
Market access, agricultural subsidies, fisheries, trade in services and trade related issues are the other sticky matters.
The second phase comes after years of talks on procedural matters, which determined the composition of countries and blocs, negotiation structures and regional forums.
Elly Twineyo, a trade expert who attended the Bujumbura meeting, said the parties will now enter a debate on the cluster issues on a written basis. Key among these will be the EU’s refusal to commit funds to the negotiation process, which will force the talks into a necessary extension.
