COSATU calls for rejection of EU-SADC Partnership Agreement
MBABANE—The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is celebrating the rejection of European Union-SADC Interim Economic Partnership Agreement (IEPA) negotiations by the governments of South Africa and Angola.
This follows the decision by both governments to scupper the negotiations for a free trade area between the Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states and the European Union (EU). Of note is the fact that both countries have commanding economies in the region. Speaking through the organisation’s national spokesperson Patrick Craven, COSATU has urged Namibia, which is wavering, to follow the lead of these countries and refuse to sign.
The federation condemned the governments of Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique, which the organisation claims have caved in to pressure from the EU. COSATU is demo-nising the agreement because it believes it is totally against the interests of the people of these poverty-ridden countries.
The purpose of the IEPA is purportedly to create a legal framework for trade relations between SADC countries and the EU because of the expiry of the Cotonou Agreement preferences in 2007, which was said to contravene the World Trade Organisation (WTO), because it gave special tariff preferences to African countries and not to all WTO countries.
The urgency of the agreement is allegedly based on the need to create certainty among investors and to avoid a WTO challenge. COSATU whose Secretary General is Zwelinzima Vavi, is lobbying for a snub of the agreement because it feels that the agreement does not in essence protect SADC countries with their frail economies as claimed by its proponents. The organisation believes that the agreement has ulterior motives which would have detrimental effects to these unsuspecting countries who have already committed themselves to the agreement and thus should be rejected.
In a communiqué to this newspaper, the organisation claims that, “the hidden purpose of the agreement is to open SADC markets to foreign competition, whist the SADC countries including SA, are not ready to compete on an equal basis with foreign industries.” COSATU believes that the main purpose of the agreement is to capture the SADC market for narrow European interests.
By MDUDUZI MAGAGULA And SIBONGIL - Times of Swaziland
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