Trading blocs to continue with EPA negotiations
Business Daily Africa, Kenya
Trading blocs to continue with EPA negotiations
By Wene Owino
12 February 2009: The EU Trade Commissioner, Catherine Ashton, was scheduled to arrive in Botswana on Wednesday for talks with senior SADC officials.
A statement from the EU said that Ms Ashton and SADC officials will discuss ways of moving forward bilateral and inter-regional trade relationships.
In Gaborone, she is expected to meet with Trade minister, Neo Moroka and Foreign minister, Phandu Skelemani and top officials from the southern Africa development bloc.
The EU official has been in South Africa where she was expected to meet the Trade minister, Mandisi Mphalwa and Foreign minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and a group of ministers from other SADC countries like Angola and Namibia.
The dominant theme of her visit is the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) which are meant to create a free trade area between the EU and African countries.
Negotiations between EU-SADC for the EPA have been dragging on since 2004.
A major challenge in implementing the EPA is the reconciliation of the various trade relations in SADC with the EU. For example, regional giant South Africa has a trade development and co-operation agreement with the EU signed in 1999.
The pact is meant to create a free trade area between EU and South Africa over a period of 12 years. The EU is supposed to open its market to South African goods at a faster pace under the deal. South Africa has been stalling on the EPA due to what some say is its desire to fall back on the 1999 agreement.
Though EPA talks were launched in 2004, the matter is complicated by the 1999 deal and the fact that South Africa was only brought on board officially in 2007. The entry created another headache when Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland signed an interim EPA with the EU at the end of 2007.
South Africa declined to sign, questioning the legality and raising concerns about its infant industries. In response, the other SADC signatories threatened to cut a final deal with EPA deal with EU without South Africa.
“We have initialled the EPAs without South Africa and we can go ahead without South Africa,” Botswana Trade Minister, Neo Moroka said after the signing of the deal.
Another example of the relationship complications in the EPA negotiations is found in the four member South African Customs Union (SACU), another bloc within SADC that the EPA must take into consideration. SACU was formed in 1969 and is the world’s oldest customs union.
It is feared that an EPA will hurt the tariff-reliant economies of Lesotho and Swaziland in SACU. Angola is allowed to join the deal though as a Least Developed Country (LDC) it has full access to the EU market under the Everything But Arms (EBA) provision.
