DEVELOPMENT-EU/ACP: Trade and Illegal Immigrants Discussed

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Brian Kenety

BRUSSELS, Feb 2 2000 (IPS) - Trade and repatriation of illegal immigrants are the major issues to be tackled at the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group negotiators meeting in Brussels, Belgium, this week.

The meeting, the final ministerial conference, will also complete negotiations on a successor to the Lome Convention trade and aid agreement.

EU chief negotiator Philip Lowe, told a news briefing here Monday that while both sides were “on course” to conclude a successor to the agreement, which expires on Feb 29, a number of outstanding issues remained on the table.

He said these include “European concern about illegal immigration” and the terms of trade preferences for ACP countries particularly the least-developed countries.

The major political issue still to be worked out is the ACP countries commitment to take back citizens who have attempted to immigrate illegally into one of the 15 EU member states.

Lowe said the EU was intent on the new agreement containing provisions that would commit both sides to the principle of the readmission of illegal immigrants in three categories.

These include “citizens of the countries concerned who are where the readmission should take place; citizens tries in transit (that does not just mean people standing around in airport lounges but people who have some link with the country where they should be readmitted – they have lived there, they have worked there – but they are not in their country of origin) and thirdly, stateless citizens,” said Lowe.

Following the last ministerial level negotiations in December, the ACP General Secretariat released a press statement criticising the EU proposal “to repatriate illegal immigrants to ACP states even if they were not nationals of such states”. The ACP said the proposal was “inconsistent with common law practice and current international legislation.”

Another major issue on the table is how the EU will relate to the ACP countries from “a commercial point-of-view” during the preparatory period for the successor to the Lome Convention.

The EU is keen on steering the new agreement away from granting preferential treatment to ACP imports, such as special supports, or protocols, in rum and rice exports which, it says, may run counter to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules towards regional free-trade agreements between the EU and the more economically viable ACP states.

The EU has committed itselfo the least-developed countries (LDCs) by 2005.

The ACP, however, is calling for other countriuntries that do not fall within the LDC category, which is recognised by the WTO and privy to certain preferential exemptions.

“What the ACPs are arguing, is that in (the preparatory) period, because of the general dismantlement of tariffs, the value of ACPs preferences will be further eroded and therefore their competitive position on the EU market will be even worse than it is today,” Lowe told reporters.

The present L

“Okay, we can look at this question, but don’t expect us to go in the face of other developing country partners and give (the ACPs) further preferences and aggravate the problecrimination that other developing countries have called upon us to correct,” said Lowe.

“That’s the fundamental reason why we’ve been renegotiating the trading arrangements over the last two years,” he said. Lowe said the EU was committed to helping developing countri world economy. “That’s a treaty obligation and it’s an objective of our development policy,” he said.

“(But) what we can do before (for the ACP countries) is necessarily bound by what we can also do for the rest of the developing countries in the same position.”

The ACPs would like the successor agreement tot for 30 years and to cover the whole process of change, not simply the trading relationships but also the new commitment to “reformed and more efficient development aid”, said Lowe, adding that the EU member states had so far over the next five years, a five percent increase in nominal terms over the previous five-year period, that has been met with disappointment by some ACP states.

Lowe said that in a situation “where development aid is also coming under great pressure in the budgets of the member states, the offer which is on the table from the EU…is quite significant, particularly as it is linked to a much greater rhythm of actual dispersements, which we are committed to ensuring through a more efficient delivery of aid.”

He said the EU was intent on meeting the targetto much more delegation of authority to our offices in the ACP countries themselves, and therefore much more hands-on management of aid is given.”