ACP Ministers against EPAs

Deputy Minister Rob Davies of South Africa's Trade and Industry Ministry said that there is a difference between the stated objectives of the EPA's and the reality of the agreement. The objectives are to promote development, improve market access and regional integration. Yet the reality of the EU's agreement was that it exceeded WTO requirements and was swamped with excessive demands of its vested commercial interests.

ACP countries find themselves backed into a serious corner that undermines development prospects and divides the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries. If there is not serious rethinking of the EPAs permanent problems will be created.

Far from promoting regional integration, the reality is that they have created divisions and complicating Africa's own integration no end. For example, the Southern Africa Development Community's (SADC's) fourteen countries have been divided into five negotiating configurations with different liberalization commitments while SADC itself was pursuing its own regional African free trade area. Divisions have also been created by EPAs in the South African Customs Union (SACU) where four out of five members of the Union have initialed the EPAs.

Mr. Abdoulaye Diop, Minister of Economy and Finances, Senegal, said the EPAs were not as good as the previous Cotonou/Lome agreements. It is very important to recognize that the latter were already very weak agreements. When we look at the development dimension, we see it was not taken care of as the commitments are general and vague. However when we look at the mercantile dimension, the agreement is very precise, with clearly cut deadlines (TWN Info service on trade issue)

In June The 87th African, Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) Council of Ministers Meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia opened with the Group expressing concern about the way most aspects of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) have progressed.

The President of the Council of the Ministers and Minister In Charge of National Solidarity of Djibouti, Mr Mohamed Ahmed Aweleh, when opening the meeting said the EPAs in their current form risk distorting regional integration.

In hopes of meeting the 2007 deadlines for completing negotiations on the EPAs, the European Commission and the ACP states were pressured by time and ended up signing interim agreements in smaller trading blocs or individually rather than the groups originally intended in order to meet the Dec. 31, 2007 deadline.

This was done in order to avoid disruption for ACP non-LDCs following the expiry of the Cotonou Trade provision and WTO waiver on Dec. 31, 2007.

Mr Aweleh highlighted that a recent African Union Trade and Finance Ministers Meeting in Ethiopia identified certain clauses in some of the completed EPAs that need to be reviewed.

The recently concluded Conference of African Ministers of Trade and Finance identified and enumerated 10 clauses that have to be revised or removed altogether in the present texts.
ACP PRESS STATEMENT 2 - ACP expresses concern on most aspects of EPAs