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DEVELOPMENT-EUROPE: NGOs Debate Future of ACP-EU Agreement

Niccolo' Sarno

BRUSSELS, Jul 7 1999 (IPS) - Concerned about the outcome of negotiations on the future of the soon-to-expire Lome Convention IV, representatives of civil society and media in the former European colonies and the European Union (EU), are due to meet in Brussels on July 8-10.

The Lome Convention is an aid and trade agreement between the European Union and 71 former colonies in Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific, known as ACP. The agreement is named after the capital of Togo, where the first convention was signed in 1975.

The Brussels gathering – ‘Civil Society and Political Partnership in Lome V’ – is organised by IPS-Inter Press Service in cooperation with the EU, to “gather views from and encourage debate in civil society and the private sector, by providing venues for expression, participation and dialogue.”

Media and NGOs, as well as EU officials will also focus on ways “to provide a timely flow of information and analysis on the negotiations and its outcome,” to be promptly delivered to civil society, the private sector, negotiators, international organisations and mass media

“Lome V does not need only a strategy of defence, from ACP countries. It needs to raise a very substantial support from like-minded forces in the North. And this network of new alliances exists, and the globalisation of telecommunications is making it everyday larger and stronger,” said Roberto Savio, Director General of IPS.

Organisations of the civil society – generally defined as one of three key sectors of the nation state, complementary to government and business — want to guarantee a bigger involvement of non-governmental groups in the current dialogue and a bigger role in the future agreement.

Both the EU and ACP negotiators say they recognise that civil society and the private sector are important and necessary players in the current talks, which are dominated by trade and economic issues.

However, from the beginning of negotiations for a new extension of Lome, in the autumn of 1998, civil society groups have been expressing concern about the lack of participation, decentralisation and transparency in the EU-ACP renegotiation.

In mid-June, representatives of Eurostep – the European NGO network – met here with EU officials to push for a more transparent and accountable decision making process, but were reportedly told that “a formal and institutionalised approach towards civil society participation might not prove productive.”

Eurostep (European Solidarity Towards Equal Participation of People) then asked officials “to give explicit recognition to the central role that civil society plays in the (Lome) partnership.”

But EU officials replied that “such a formal approach in the undemocratic environment of some ACP countries could create an alternative political structure,” according to the Brussels-based organisation.

However, the EU acknowledged in April, through its Commissioner for relations with ACP countries Joao de Deus Pinheiro, that civil society is crucial to setting up a democratic environment.

“In the absence of strong demand from civil society, democracy hardly has a chance and human rights are only respected when encroachment is followed by a strong reaction from civil society,” said Pinheiro at the annual assembly of European NGOs here.

During an informal meeting with ACP representatives at the ACP- EU negotiations last week, Eurostep director Simon Stocker called for the establishment of mechanisms at the national and regional level for enabling civil society involvement.

ACP ambassadors reportedly said through spokespersons that there is a need to address the question of who does “civil society” represent, which according to them needs to be spelled out and regulated.

However, warned Stocker, looking for single representation of civil society may make it lose its diversity and may risk creating a leadership that is not rooted.

Already last October, Carl Greenidge of the Brussels-based ACP secretariat made it clear that the ACP countries were unlikely to agree on formally incorporating civil society in any “decision making forum” at an ACP-EU level.

Nevertheless, he said “It may be possible at the ACP-EU level to consider inviting representatives to, say, the Council of Ministers, to address a specific issue which they may deem relevant to the competence and interest of the civil society (…) ”

” The question of who is to be invited will then arise and the question of the governance of these groups will then have to be tackled frontally,” he added.

According to Youssouf Cisse, vice-president of the Senegalese Council of Development Support Organisations (Conseil des Organisations d’Appui au Developpement – CONGAD), “in most cases the public authorities in the ACP states have great difficulty in accepting coordination and consultations with the civil and social agents.”

” It is seen as a loss of power and sometimes even as an attack on the exercise of national sovereignty,” wrote Cisse in a recent paper on “the place and the involvement of civil society” in the Lome Convention.

“It should be noted that the ACP group’s mandate to negotiate does not envisage the involvement of civil society. That gives an idea of the challenges and of the work that still has to be done,” warned Cisse in the document he contributed to a Dutch NGO, INZET.

Like most civil society organisations, INZET says that “concrete provisions must be established to ensure that the commitment to civil society participation is translated into effective instruments.”

But, according to Lome observers, such commitments are not among the negotiators’ top priorities.

“There is always the risk that this subject, whatever its importance, pales among other concerns considered by officials on either side to be more basic or more urgent in order to conclude an agreement focusing on economic and trade relations,” says George Huggins of the International Development Consulting in a November 1998 paper

The IVth Lome Convention will reach an end in February 2000, and the negotiations towards a new pact, which began in September 1998, are about to enter their crucial phase.

 
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