Thursday, July 17, 2008
since I last blogged…Africa/Europe trade negotiations grind onwards
The other night I dreamt that I was sitting at my parents’ kitchen table with my family, telling them what I’d been doing while I was in Kenya. At the end, they said: So basically, you didn’t achieve anything. I woke up very sad. Also, in my dream I had pierced ears, which was really confusing for me because I couldn’t remember when that had happened.
Well, it’s true, those pesky Economic Partnership Agreement (EPAs) negotiations keep inching closer towards finalizing some Truly Bad Deals for Africa. There was a lot of pressure at the end of last year, with the European Commission threatening to suspend trade preferences for African exports if they didn’t sign something before 2008. So most of the African countries that aren’t Least Developed Countries ended up initialing “Interim” or “Framework” EPAs – agreements that just cover trade in goods.
This year, the EC is focused on getting those Interim EPAs actually signed, and even more so, getting EVERYONE to sign on to “Comprehensive” EPAs, which include service liberalisation and restrictions on investment regulation and intellectual property rights regimes and all kinds of other nasty stuff that doesn’t belong in a Free Trade Agreement anyways. Oh, and promises of Development Aid from the European Union.
But there is good news.
~ None of the Interim EPAs have actually been signed yet. An initialed treaty is not a signed treaty, so there is still space to either change the initialed text or to pull out altogether.
~ The delay in the negotiations means that African countries could sign up for a preferential trade scheme (GSP+) starting at the beginning of 2009, and just skip out on an EPA altogether without losing most of their European export markets.
~ More and more people and institutions are pointing out how Truly Bad the draft EPAs are. In the past few weeks, a French parliamentarian published an extremely critical and well researched document looking at the development impacts of EPAs & Sarkozy gave it a pretty positive response; Joseph Stiglitz told the world that EPAs are a bad idea; a massive on-line petition against the Caribbean community’s EPA is growing; Angola, Namibia and South Africa are standing up against the EC’s pressure tactics….
So I’ve still got hope.
Well, it’s true, those pesky Economic Partnership Agreement (EPAs) negotiations keep inching closer towards finalizing some Truly Bad Deals for Africa. There was a lot of pressure at the end of last year, with the European Commission threatening to suspend trade preferences for African exports if they didn’t sign something before 2008. So most of the African countries that aren’t Least Developed Countries ended up initialing “Interim” or “Framework” EPAs – agreements that just cover trade in goods.
This year, the EC is focused on getting those Interim EPAs actually signed, and even more so, getting EVERYONE to sign on to “Comprehensive” EPAs, which include service liberalisation and restrictions on investment regulation and intellectual property rights regimes and all kinds of other nasty stuff that doesn’t belong in a Free Trade Agreement anyways. Oh, and promises of Development Aid from the European Union.
But there is good news.
~ None of the Interim EPAs have actually been signed yet. An initialed treaty is not a signed treaty, so there is still space to either change the initialed text or to pull out altogether.
~ The delay in the negotiations means that African countries could sign up for a preferential trade scheme (GSP+) starting at the beginning of 2009, and just skip out on an EPA altogether without losing most of their European export markets.
~ More and more people and institutions are pointing out how Truly Bad the draft EPAs are. In the past few weeks, a French parliamentarian published an extremely critical and well researched document looking at the development impacts of EPAs & Sarkozy gave it a pretty positive response; Joseph Stiglitz told the world that EPAs are a bad idea; a massive on-line petition against the Caribbean community’s EPA is growing; Angola, Namibia and South Africa are standing up against the EC’s pressure tactics….
So I’ve still got hope.
(photo from a march in Lisbon in December at the Europe/Africa Summit. There was a klezmer band! How great is THAT?)
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