Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), including farmers, workers, women’s, faith-based and students’ groups and organizations, have issued a statement declaring that it is clear more than ever, that the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are Europe’s means of locking-in the fundamentally unequal relationships between Africa and Europe. Viewed from Africa, this is nothing less than, “re-colonisation.”
The groups which met in Cape Town, South Africa recently under the auspices of the Africa Trade Network noted that EPAS are self-serving free trade agreements, that Europe seeks to impose on African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, and which will ultimately destroy the economies of these countries.
When the EPA negotiations were launched, CSOs from all over Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Europe warned that these trade arrangements were profoundly anti-developmental. It was pointed out that the EPAs posed a threat not only specifically to government revenue, local producers and industries, food sovereignty, essential public services, and the regional integration of African countries; but also to the right and capacity in general of African countries to develop their economies according to the needs of their people and their own national, regional and continental priorities.
The latest developments in these negotiations have exposed even more sharply the fundamental outrage represented by EPAs.
At the end of 2007, Europe deployed manipulative and heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to force African governments into so-called ‘interim’ agreements. When it became clear that no African regional bloc would agree to its demands, the European Commission, with the active support of its member states, resorted to blatant divide-and-rule tactics. Europe capitalised on the fact that, for historical reasons, a few export sectors in Africa are largely dependent on the European market. By threatening to close access to these markets and throw export sectors into chaos, Europe rode roughshod over the regional negotiating processes and instigated bilateral deals with individual countries.
The more vulnerable African governments were forced to concede to Europe’s demand for ‘interim’ trade deals, and in the process, completely undermined regional negotiating positions.
These Interim Economic Partnership Agreements reveal Europe’s true face. The deals are classical free trade agreements that clearly serve Europe’s commercial and geo-economic interests. All the claims about supporting Africa’s development and regional integration have been exposed as false.
Merely to secure a level of market access that is remarkably similar to previous levels, ACP countries involved in the interim agreements have had to concede to opening up their economies to historically unprecedented levels even beyond the commitments required at the multilateral level.
In addition, Europe took advantage of the circumstances to insert clauses in the interim agreements that were not even part of earlier negotiations. These include the ‘most favoured nation’ clause, a standstill clause that forbids countries from ever raising tariffs on imports from Europe, and restrictions and even outright prohibitions on export taxes. These provisions only serve to lock in further these countries into Europe’s agenda, and prevent them from exploring other options and relations within the changing global order. This will take away their space for autonomous policy to create jobs, secure livelihoods and pursue equitable economic development and regional integration.
Throughout the negotiating process, aid has been used as a bait to lure African governments into long and protracted debates, which have diverted attention from the fundamental economic issues at stake and misled them into taking on onerous commitments. As the ‘Interim’ deals make abundantly clear, promises of additional financing are illusory.
The negotiating agenda for 2008 aims at deepening the above processes. Europe intends to lock in the ‘interim’ agreements with all their outrageous provisions as quickly as possible. This is a clear breach of the understanding on which they were provisionally initialled – namely that the deals were merely a means to avoid possible retaliation at the WTO and that any contentious elements would be renegotiated.
In addition, Europe is exerting high levels of pressure on African governments to expand the negotiations to open up the service sector and to include binding rules on investment, competition policy, and government procurement. Such rules will take away the right of African governments to manage investment and investors in ways that serve Africa’s own development. The inclusion of such issues is not necessary at the multilateral level and against the expressed wishes and declarations of Africa’s governments and peoples.
The ATN observations reinforce the position developed by the Global to Action Against Poverty and inequality notably that national governments must reject harmful regional and bilateral free trade agreements.
