COMESA advisor urges unity over EPAs
2009-08-26 - Chief technical advisor to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Dr Moses Tekere has said the decision by some countries not to sign interim economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU) will undermine regional integration and cohesiveness in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region.
Announcing the decision of six of the 16 ESA members – Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe – to sign interim EPAs with the EU in Mauritius this Saturday, Tekere said Europe is a major trading partner for the region and accounts for 40 percent of total trade.
“But we cannot have trade without a proper regime to guide us and also we want to move away from dependency to partnership so that we can be able to negotiate on our terms and with what we have”, he said.
“But the biggest challenge is that some countries are not signing and this undermines regional integration and cohesiveness because it shows that we are not united as a group but those countries not signing have given reasons of various strategic national interests.”
The interim EPAs would allow 100 percent market access for all goods from the ESA region but with temporary exceptions for rice and sugar, Tekere said. The EU would provide about €2 billion for costs of adjustment and development assistance.
“We need about 30 billion Euros for development assistance and to meet costs of adjustments but we have not secured these funds, anyway we should not put our lives in the hands of Europe but we should decide our own destiny hence the need to look for alternative resources within the region”, Tekere said.
Despite the proposed signing of the interim EPAs with the EU this Saturday, numerous contentious issues still remain unresolved. The EU has failed to agree with ESA on many issues such as export taxes to protect infant industries whereby taxes can be imposed on raw materials to encourage value addition.
The EU has also insisted on inserting a standstill clause into the EPAs that would prevent the ESA region from negotiating any other agreement with other concerned parties, and the most favoured nation (MFN) clause which would entail ESA countries extending to the EU whatever trade agreements they may enter into with any other countries or regions.
Tekere, however, said the list of issues not agreed upon has now been reduced. “We have agreed to modify tariffs and we shall not open up sensitive industries which we think are critical to our economies and on the MFN clause we shall only open up to 80 percent market access”, he said.
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