Meeting fails to close gap on regional deals
Inter Press Service | 14 March 2007
TRADE: Meeting Fails to Close Gap on Regional Deals
Analysis by Hendrik Schott
BONN, Mar 14 (IPS) — As president of the European Union Council for the first half of this year, Germany sought to play a prominent role at a meeting of EU development ministers in Bonn Mar. 13.
An informal dialogue between the EU and representatives of 75 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), development and energy, and policy coherence for development covered much ground, but produced no agreement on trade issues.
At the final press conference German development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul announced a partnership between the EU and Africa in the field of energy. However, the political row about EPAs will continue.
Some ACP countries remained sceptical over negotiations on EPAs, whereas the EU ministers seemed unanimously in favour of EPAs as a tool for development. The regional agreements are being negotiated in the absence of a global trade agreement.
European and African NGOs are calling on the EU to delay the negotiations in order to ensure that EPAs are more conducive to development. The timeframe is tight. Will the concerns of the ACP countries be accommodated and will African and European NGOs be able to participate substantially?
Immediately before the EU meeting, the Association of German Development NGOs (Venro) organised an international conference ’Prospects for Africa — Europe’s Policies’. It emerged at the meeting that African NGOs have not been able to participate sufficiently in the negotiations process.
"There is no broad-based consultative process in African capital cities," said Agnes Abuom from the All African Conference of Churches (AACC).
NGOs like Third World Network Africa are afraid that many of the poorest African countries are not going to withstand the competitive pressure exerted by EU member states. The NGOs are emphasising that the "EU has still not succeeded in achieving policy coherence for development, that is, the objectives of different policy areas such as trade and agriculture are still having a negative impact on the development goals."
Klaus Schilder, spokesperson of the German NGO WEED, told IPS that more time is needed to find better solutions. Furthermore, a reciprocal opening of markets as required by the EPAs should be avoided. Services and investments should be excluded from liberalization, he said.
Schilder condemned what he called the intransigent attitude of the EU Commission, the executive arm of the EU, and said he is afraid that the tight timeframe will force ACP countries to sign.
Alexandra Burman, spokesperson for German NGOs "Brot für die Welt" and EED, doubts whether EPAs will help achieve the goal of strengthening regional integration. They could even harm the process of economic integration of the whole of the African continent, she added.
According to Burman, the scepticism of ACP ministers over EPAs is substantial. Corinna Heineke (Oxfam Germany) stressed that there are still not enough studies on the impact of EPAs.
Furthermore, precise definitions of products and industries that should be excluded from liberalisation are still needed. The EU should offer alternatives to signing the EPAs, she told IPS.
It is obvious that the negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements have entered a critical phase. The Cotonou agreement (agreed in Cotonou in Benin in West Africa in June 2000) that gives ACP countries preferential access to the EU market will expire at the end of 2007. The ACP countries not among the Least Developed Countries will face export losses if new agreements are not concluded in time.
At present, negotiations are behind schedule because no draft agreements have been produced, except one for the Caribbean region.
According to the EU, EPAs are not purely a trade policy instrument but instead combine development and trade policy.
Louis Michel, European commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, also stressed that asymmetric measures, specific treatments and long transition periods would ensure that the ACP partners’ integration into the world economy would be successful.
Both sides are under pressure to conclude the EPAs this year. It seems that during the informal ACP-EU dialogue on EPAs in Bonn no substantial progress was made over central challenges like ACP market access to the EU, deeper regional integration within ACP regions, and the ACP call for higher financial support for the EPA process.
Commissioner Louis Michel promised that the amount the EU wants to spend on ’Aid for Trade’ would be doubled after a successful conclusion of the EPAs. However, the wording of the press release on the outcome of the informal meeting indicates that both sides still must do a lot of homework.
A joint ACP-EU review is due to be published in May. This review will focus on the progress made at the EPA negotiations, and will evaluate how links between trade and development can be improved. It will also highlight the stumbling blocks in the way of the EPAs being concluded on schedule.
An ACP-EU Council of Ministers will take place in Brussels in May or June, and the German development minister will host an ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly Jun.23-28. By then it will be clear how successful the German presidency was in facilitating the negotiation process on EPAs and their implementation as tools conducive to development and regional integration.
