Lobbyists meet in Uganda to press for ’just’ EPAs
The East African, Nairobi
Lobbyists Meet in Uganda to Press for ’Just’ EPAs
24 March 2008
By Julius Barigaba, Nairobi
Ahead of another round of negotiations to conclude the economic partnership agreements with the European Union, civil society from East and Southern Africa meet in Kampala this week to take a common position on the remaining issues — services, agriculture, investment, competition and government procurement.
The EPAs have replaced the 2000 Cotonou Agreement that gave duty free market access to the EU to African, Caribbean and Pacific countries till the end of 2007.
EPAs will see ACP countries gradually reduce trade tariffs by 82 per cent and open their markets to EU products.
In December last year, at least 35 ACP countries signed interim agreements with the EU on market access, fisheries and development aid.
However, the agreement did not include several other areas, which activists now say must not be liberalised.
Peter Aoga, a member of the Kenya Civil Society Alliance, told The EastAfrican last week that the region will take a hardline stand against liberalisation of services because it is not ready for competition in this area.
While the EU is a services powerhouse, ACP countries cannot match their trade partner, and would lose out in the labour market, he said.
"As you know, the area of services was never concluded and we want to develop a position on this," said Mr Aoga, who also previously worked with EcoNews Africa, one of the frontline organisations that oppose EPAs.
"We want to agree that we should never liberalise services until we have developed a framework on this." He added. Trade in services gets even more complicated, especially for African countries, as issues of terrorism are now used against labour immigrants who would otherwise qualify to work in the EU.
The region’s civil society, which has consistently opposed the EPAs, will also discuss the politics that saw the region sign the deal with the EU in two separate blocs. Originally negotiating under the East and Southern Africa configuration with 11 other countries, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi — which make up the East African Community Customs Union — broke away to sign an interim EPA with the EU in December, while the other countries signed under ESA.
"We have come back together as ESA because we are against this divide and rule method of partitioning Africa into small blocs," said Jane Nalunga, a trade negotiations expert. "And this time we need a holistic picture not just as EAC but the entire region."
Under their previous mandate as ESA, civil society had a role to play and an input to make in the negotiations that eventually led to the signing of the agreements, but there were rapid developments towards the end of last year that saw the East African Community — the only trade bloc that is also a Customs Union — agree to sign the EPA as one entity despite having belonged to differing negotiation groups, with Tanzania under the South African Development Community, while the other four were in the ESA group.
This switch did not go down well with civil society, who say their demands were shoved aside in the interim agreement that was signed in Kampala on December 27.
"Civil society was involved all the way, then out of the blue, the EAC breaks off and signs the agreement. What role did we play in this agreement? That’s what we want to know," said Mr Aoga.
Conspicuously missing in the interim agreement is a demand that had been developed under ESA in which the EU would commit more development aid to the ESA region in order to improve its infrastructure and other supply capacities.
Instead, the agreement says the EAC will continue to get funding from the already existing programmes of the European Development Fund and the aid-for-trade arrangement.
Beyond EPAs, the Kampala meeting will also debate new areas of environmental and genetic concern — looking at biofuels, food security and genetically modified organisms, that are widely deemed dangerous as well as other multilateral concerns. The region must develop a position on these imminent threats now, the activists said.
Nairobi-based group EcoNews, Oxfam GB Uganda, Seatini - a regional trade negotiations thinktank — and Advocates Coalition on Development and Environment lead the organisations that want these issues brought to the fore.
