TRADE-EU: New Focus in Africa Sought

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Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Mar 11 2004 (IPS) - A new report recommends a far-reaching review of the trade negotiations under way between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

The report by the consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) asks the European Union (EU) to focus "on the regions that are farthest along in the negotiations." It says "methods should be improved for disseminating information between experts within the EU and the ACP group."

The report says current negotiations should focus on trade in traditional export crops such as cotton, cocoa, coffee and sugar. But the 77 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries should not stick indefinitely to traditional produce, it says.

The PWC report examines the "extent of existing economic, social and environmental stress" that trade relations could have on the countries involved. It identifies "hot spots" for environmental, economic and social priorities..

The report released Tuesday this week expresses concern over the "lack of diversification of products coming from ACP countries, low levels of production, and a lack of infrastructure within the countries."

Foreign direct investment is "essential to develop such infrastructure which would support a diversity of exports," it says. It recommends "horizontal diversification" and "capacity building and strong regional integration" in countries within an EPA zone. But an official from the Democratic Republic of Congo said the report should have provided "real figures" which could be used as a benchmark for improving the agreements. Other ACP officials say the assessment does not go far enough.

The first phase of the EPA negotiations began in Brussels September 2002. But negotiations over market access, trade-related areas, services and the development dimension of EPAs proved inconclusive.

The second phase was marked by regional negotiations with central and west Africa in October last year and with the eastern and southern Africa region in February.

All negotiations are due to be concluded by December 2007. The EPAs are due to be implemented between 2008 and 2020.

The PWC report says in its stability impact assessment (SIA) that civil society too needs to contribute to the EPA negotiating process.

Liz Dodd from the British NGO Traidcraft says the first phase of the SIA had raised "some fundamental concerns" about the impact of EPAs on vulnerable ACP producers and economies.

"To ensure that this SIA is not a costly but futile research exercise, it is now critical that the results are taken up both by the Commission, but more importantly by the European Union member states in terms of revising their EPA negotiating mandate," she told IPS.

In a separate report the independent EPA Watch says the EU needs to review "existing institutional arrangements for extending assistance to address supply side constraints." It needs also to "support the establishment of coordinated and integrated country specific programmes of assistance" and to "review the successes and failures of existing programmes."

Such measures would "provide a basis for identifying the real scale of the need for additional restructuring assistance in the face of moves towards free trade with the EU," Marc Maes from the Belgian NGO 11.11.11 told IPS.