By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Sep 9 2004 (IPS)

New trade negotiations between the EU and a group of small Pacific countries might only bring more poverty, NGOs fear.

Negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the 14 Pacific members in the 77 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries begin in Nadi in Fiji Friday.

Outgoing trade commissioner Pascal Lamy and development commissioner Poul Nielson will represent the EU at the negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the Pacific island states.

The EPAs fall under the Cotonou agreement signed in June 2000 in Cotonou in the West African country Benin between the EU and 77 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific regions. The Cotonou agreement was meant to mark a new era in cooperation between countries from the North and South.

The Pacific is the last of six regions within the group of 77 to begin regional negotiations. They began in the Central Africa region in October last year, but have not led so far to more than roadmaps for future talks. The negotiations are due to be concluded by December 2007, and the EPAs implemented between 2008 and 2020.

The ACP office in Brussels calls the EPAs “an opportunity but also a big risk” and is asking for common rules across all ACP regions.

“Markets in these countries are often very small,” he said. “We want to help to ease the trade barriers between neighbouring ACP countries in order to have them gain experience and make them better prepared for world markets.”

But doubts remain whether Europe can deliver this. “If Pacific integration was truly the intention, the EU should keep itself out of the agreement and not create a region that includes the Pacific small islands states as well as the EU,” Marc Maes from the NGO group 11.11.11 told IPS.

Eveline Herfkens, the UN Secretary General’s coordinator for the campaign to promote the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) says the EPAs are “a real problem for poor countries.”

The Least Developed Countries that include many ACP countries have neither the time nor the capacity to negotiate strong agreements with the EU, Herfkens told the development committee of the European Parliament.

Ellerman-Kingombe agrees there is a “capacity problem” but says the EU is addressing it. He refers to two programmes worth about 85 million dollars to support the ACP countries to carry out studies and organise themselves, and another 12 million dollar budget for the Pacific Region Integration Programme. Europe is also providing technical assistance, he says.

“This amount of money is nothing compared to what was for instance given to the new EU member states to help them reach EU standards on their products,” Eurostep head Simon Stocker told IPS.

Stocker also draws attention to the paradox that EU experts are helping ACP countries to negotiate with the EU. “One can question whose side these consultants are on,” he says.

Ellerman-Kingombe insists there is nothing underhand about this since “we are not in this to make a fantastic deal at their expense, but for an overall development objective.”

But Eurostep insists there is a “predominant focus” in the negotiations on the removal of tariff barriers, which would result in increased access for EU exports to the ACP countries.

A number of civil society organisations from both European and ACP countries have recently set up a ‘Stop EPA’ coalition.

“We feel a generalised system of preferential market access for all development countries would be a valuable alternative,” says Maes. “WTO mandates that when member countries make a deal with only a limited group of development countries, this agreement must go further than normal WTO rules. But it is appalling that ACP countries would thus be forced to have a freer market than general WTO rules require.”

ACP spokesman in Brussels Hegel Goutier says he is “realistic” about EPA negotiations. “We feel that there is no other option but an open global market,” he told IPS. “We prefer getting assistance to enter it more softly together with a partner, even if this partner does have its own interests.”

But he says the ACP countries will “only agree to go further than global WTO rules when we get a development bonus. If the partner forgets sometimes that EPA is not about trade for trade but about trade for development, we will remind him."

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