By Dr Clive Thomas
We saw last week that as the WTO-waiver deadline approached at the end of last year, the stratagem that might best describe the process of hasty initialling of interim EPAs was “the aversion of disaster at all costs, with agreement reached nowhere.” As a consequence the interim EPAs lacked careful thought and therefore reflect no clear economic rationale. At best they might be considered as some sort of barometer of the negotiating capacity of the African and Pacific countries concerned. As the Overseas Development Council and the Economic Policy Development Management Centre study shows, the degree of trade liberalization, whether measured by implementation schedules, coverage of items, waivers, exceptions and exclusions, or other transitional details, show no definite correlation with expected country economic variables such as income and poverty levels, developmental needs, economic openness, or even trade shares with the EU.
There is also no revealed coherence between the interim EPAs and the integration movements in the Africa and Pacific regions. Different liberalization schedules among countries in the same region will certainly impede the smooth development of regional integration among these countries. Some have argued that this might also occasion undesirable trade deflection. In some integration arrangements it is even the case that the ‘rendezvous clauses’ for this year’s negotiations differ among countries in the same region.
The challenges do not end here, but the EU remains so firmly committed to its version of what is the correct development path for the ACP group of countries that, at present, it is not prepared to brook consideration of alternative ACP-directed autonomous paths to their development. The editorial for the April issue of Trade Negotiations Insights reports a statement by the EU development Commissioner made in reply to comments and questions from concerned Europeans: “If you want to remain poor, just be against the EPAs.”
This has been interpreted variously as a possible threat to withhold EU development assistance to ACP countries against EPAs, or a restatement of the EU’s conviction that only the EPAs can deliver development to the ACP group of countries, or the blending of both. There have also been statements by EU officials in complaint of what they view as “the sluggish pace” of negotiation in 2008. Veiled threats have also been issued about the imposition of GSP duties on states that do not complete full EPAs by the end of this year – so much for the much heralded “partnership of equals.”
Funding once again
If the former interpretation is held it would contradict previous EU declarations to the effect that there was no linkage between development assistance and the EPAs.
Thus the DG Development was very clear and precise that there are no links between the provision of financing and the EPAs: “As I have said, the EU has never made the granting of trade aid conditional on signing up to an EPA. At the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon in December 2007, the Commissioner signed ‘country strategy papers’ with 31 African countries, which allocate 8 billion euros from the 10th EDF over the period 2008-2013. Half the signatory countries to these documents have not signed EPAs. As for regional aid, it will certainly enforce ACP regional integration, but its programming guidelines do not require the signing of an EPA.” (Louis Michel 2007)
Going forward
Do the interim EPAs create opportunities? In going forward the hope must now be that the interim EPAs would create an opportunity for reflection and other options to be pursued. Regrettably, having been the “first” to initial a full EPA, this option might have been foreclosed for CARIFORUM. It is my view, however, that what is required is combined ACP political pressure to attain a framework arrangement in which the EU commits to giving to any party to an EPA (interim or full) any provision they desire that the EU might agree to in some other EPA.
In conclusion, I would therefore advance the following three broad proposals as a roadmap for countries going forward: First, a political agreement is required between the EU and ACP group on the proposal mentioned above, namely that, recognising the EPAs cannot all be identical given the regional variation of the ACP, a party to any EPA (interim or full) may have included in their signed EPA any provision agreed to by the EU in another EPA, if it so desires. This would accommodate for asymmetric negotiating capacities.
Second, the agenda and time-frame for negotiations should be from now on goal driven as determined by both parties, now that the WTO-waiver deadline has been accommodated. This means much more attention to the numerous weaknesses identified in these columns. That is, more transparency and greater effective participation in the negotiations process, real ownership by both parties to the agreement on the scope of issues to be covered in the EPA; greater sensitivity to negotiating asymmetry between the EU centre and the ACP periphery, as well as the ACP-EPA centres and member states (for example, CARIFORUM and individual member states who are the legal signatories to the EPA).
Third, the opportunity should be taken to explore alternative frameworks for achieving the EPA objectives. Given the context of the Doha Development Round, these should be more explicitly grounded in the search for a more multilateral rather than overwhelmingly bilateral framework as in the present EPAs.
Are there any possibilities in this regard? This issue will be addressed as my final topic in this series.
