EPA deadline passes with many issues unresolved

17 January 2008

Only a handful of countries have signed onto the highly contested free trade agreements with Europe, which critics argue would limit governments’ ability to protect local firms or stipulate certain investment conditions.

The deadline for the highly controversial Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that the European Union is pursuing in Africa passed on January 1 with just a few countries signed on. The EU had insisted that EPAs should be concluded by the end of 2007, when Europe’s current trade agreements in the region expired.

Only a handful of countries, including Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, the East African Community, and five countries in southern Africa, have signed onto the free trade agreements with Europe, which critics argue would limit governments’ ability to protect local firms or stipulate certain investment conditions. Most of these agreements were initialed on an interim basis that will allow the free flow of goods, while decisions on the much more contentious topic of liberalized services are expected to be negotiated during 2008. These “competition clauses” have been omitted to date from negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO), along with the other “Singapore issues” that Northern countries have been advocating, only to be met with intense resistance from developing countries.

Many critics from within civil society and African governments - the most prominent of whom has been Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade - have spoken out publicly against the agreements and the inordinate pressure that the EU has put on African governments to sign the deals. Even officials at the World Bank have encouraged the EU to push back its deadline to grant governments additional time to work out the details of the agreements.

Resources

• Q&A: “The EU Is a Bandit in Trade Negotiations,” Inter Press Service, December 20, 2007 (IPS website)
• EU is Using ''Bully Tactics'' to Push Through EPAs by Aileen Kwa, Inter Press Service, December 15, 2007 (IPS website)
• Spare This EU Paternalism by David Cronin, Inter Press Service, January 11, 2008 (IPS website)
• World Bank asks for more time on EPAs by David Cronin, Inter Press Service, September 27, 2007 (IPS website)
• Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute website