Declaration of the Platform of West African Civil Society Organizations on the Cotonou Agreement (POSCAO-AC)
EPA Negotiations: West Africa must not accept a headlong rush!
On June 17, 2009, West African chief negotiators and those from the European Union came to the conclusion that it was impossible to conclude the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
After a new round of negotiations which was started in January 2008 and lasted for 18 months, both parties came to the conclusion that there were still major divergences were on most of the issues. West Africa in particular estimated that most its concerns were not sufficiently taken into account to justify its commitment in an EPA by then.
According to the NGOs signing this statement: "If West Africa is not careful, it runs the risk of chasing rainbows by engaging in an excessive liberalization of its trade with Europe in the hope of speculative funds which will only turn out to be nothing but an empty shell. Europe does not have the 9.5 billion Euros that West Africa needs to finance the pro-development EPA programme and has not made any commitment any in that direction. At best, it will take the money intended to finance other programmes within the framework of the European Development Fund and Member States’ bilateral aid to fund the EPA , which will hardly cost her any efforts".
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