SADC needs EU - Gurirab
New Era, Windhoek
SADC Needs EU - Gurirab
30 April 2008
By Catherine Sasman, Windhoek
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries need assistance and cooperation from the European Union to overcome development challenges in the spirit of partnership, said Speaker of the National Assembly, Theo-Ben Gurirab, at the first regional ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) in the southern African region.
He said the ongoing Economic Partnership Agreements expected to be concluded by the end of this year should be arrived at "in a manner that leaves no country worse off".
"The EPAs should be mechanisms for open trade and development contributing to diversified cooperation and better understanding. Also, SADC needs solidarity of friends to deal with the crises of rising food and fuel prices and the threat of inflation and high interest rates," Gurirab said. The Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) is a treaty obligation under the Cotonou Agreement between Europe and the ACP [African, Caribbean and Pacific countries]. Wilkie Rasmussen, Co-President of the ACP-EU JPA, said the EPAs should be instruments of development and not an end in itself. This meeting is to lead up to the sixth Summit of ACP Heads of State and Government to take place in Accra, Ghana, in October.
The Summit is to reflect on its future, global issues such as climate change, migration and food security, including the rise of basic food prices. "Our natural resources are a national interest; we will improve the management thereof and ensure that the main beneficiaries are our people," said Rasmussen. Glenys Kinnock, also a Co-President of the ACP-EU JPA, said ACP countries are right to have identified the need to revisit contentious issues in the EPAs.
She said across the ACP, hastily arranged liberalization schedules have been drawn up that did not take into account the effect on future regional integration processes. The ESA/COMESA has split, with the emergence of the EAC-EPA, leaving that region with mainly least developed countries and island states. SADC, she said, has lost most of its members during the negotiations, with integration centered on SACU, including Mozambique. And since South Africa has not signed the initial EPAs, this has caused more confusion in the southern African regional configuration.
She said it is important to question why the European Commission wants provisions of the most favoured nation clause and why there is pressure to negotiate Singapore issues "when this is not necessary for WTO compatibility".
"The EU and the ACP share a commitment to mutual respect and this must not be jettisoned by those who do not value our partnership. And clearly, trade liberalization itself will not deliver economic development. And we must confirm that recycled EDF 10 [European Development Fund] and the promise of aid for trade will not suffice," Kinnock maintained. Vice-chairperson of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, Nora Schimming-Chase, said full reciprocity between two unequal trading partners - such as the ACP and EU - would result in "serious revenue losses to the ACP with serious implications on their governments’ ability to deliver public goods".
Kinnock added that the rising food prices - where many in the ACP spend as much as 75 percent of their income on food - could be the most crucial peace and security issue of our time.
On the Zimbabwean crisis, Kinnock said it would be imperative for African leaders to mediate in the post-electoral crisis when the presidential election results have been "declared and clarified".
