By IPS Correspondents
BONN, Mar 13 2007 (IPS)

Europe’s highest-ranking trade official has claimed that the entire African, Pacific and Caribbean (ACP) bloc is committed to reaching controversial free trade deals with the EU by the end of this year. Not everyone from the ACP group thinks so.

Peter Mandelson, European commissioner for trade, said that all six regional groupings within the 75-country ACP have jointly undertaken to meet the Dec. 31 deadline for reaching Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

Yet while he argued that “we have laid good foundations to take us into the final phase of the negotiations,” Mandelson recognised that this “does not mean that progress is assured.”

Mandelson’s upbeat assessment of the EPA negotiations delivered at a meeting of EU development aid ministers in Bonn contrasts with recent statements from ACP negotiators.

Hans-Joachim Keil, commerce minister of Samoa (a South Pacific island nation of 175,000) and chairman of negotiators from the Pacific region, said at the conference that the European Commission’s tactics in the talks amounted to repeating “rigid red lines and inflexible positions that do not reflect any genuine willingness to think creatively and arrive at a mutually acceptable solution that addresses the unique needs and circumstances (of the Pacific region).”

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, is eager to have free trade agreements reached this year in order to accommodate the World Trade Organisation. Although the WTO had agreed to exempt preferential terms of access for ACP goods to the EU market from its rules, this waiver expires Dec. 31.

Several non-governmental organisations argued this week that the deadline must not be used as a pretext to browbeat ACP countries into signing agreements that are inimical to their own interests.

Sophie Powell from the London-based fair trade group Traidcraft called on Germany, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, to advocate a change in the policies being pursued by the European Commission.

“The German government and other EU member states should be stopping the Commission from pushing anti-development deals on the ACP countries,” she told IPS. “Unless Germany uses this opportunity to change the direction of the negotiations, it will be disappointing the hundreds of millions of ACP citizens, who are relying on them to do so.”

Insiders at the trade talks say that EU officials are threatening ACP governments with considerable losses of earnings from export revenue and aid if they do not sign agreements. The West Africa grouping has reportedly been told it faces losses of a billion dollars a year. Similarly, the Commission has told Central African governments that they face higher import duties for EU-destined goods if the deadline is missed.

Six Socialist members of the European Parliament pointed out this week that 2 billion euros (2.6 billion dollars) in aid to the ACP is being made conditional on the agreements being concluded. As about half of that sum has not yet been released by EU governments, there is a risk that the ACP is being given “unreaslistic aid offers in return for what could be sub-optimal EPAs”, the Socialists said.

“Aid and trade are intrinsically linked but they should not be played off against one another,” added the deputies, who include Josep Borrell from Spain (until recently president of the European Parliament), Glenys Kinnock from Britain and Italy’s Pasqualina Napoletano.

Campaigners have urged the Commission to study a precedent set by the United States as an alternative to the EPAs. Under the U.S. Africa Growth and Opportunities Act, selected African countries have been given duty-free access to the U.S. market since October 2000, without having to grant reciprocal preferences to U.S. exporters. The act runs until 2015 and has never been challenged, even though it does not have a WTO waiver.

Africans are fearful that free trade with Europe would deprive them of the vital revenue they gain from tariffs on imports to their economies. A new study on Malawi by the organisation Tearfund says that an EPA would undermine national efforts to develop a manufacturing sector and to “add value” to agricultural exports. The end result would be that Malawi’s status as an exporter of low-value unprocessed goods would be reinforced.

Marc Maes, trade campaigner with the Belgian organisation 11.11.11 said that the European Commission is promoting “Europe’s offensive interests” by trying to convince the ACP countries to open up their markets to European firms.

“The Commission is saying that no part of the private sector is knocking on its door saying that it needs a market opening in ACP countries,” Maes told IPS. “Of course, though, access to African resources would be very important to European industry. That said, the Commission is so convinced of its own approach that it doesn’t need much of a push from industry.”

Germany’s Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul acknowledged that free trade will not automatically lead to a reduction of poverty, and argued that the EPAs need to be integrated into longer-term development strategies. Still, she maintained that the agreements could combine trade and the fight against poverty in a beneficial way. “The timeframe for the conclusion of the EPAs is tight but we should make use of it,” she said.

Luis Morago, head of Oxfam’s Brussels office, urged the EU’s development ministers to be more vociferous on the EPAs than they have been so far. “The European Commission is pushing proposals that are profoundly anti-development,” he said. “Development ministers must live up to their job titles and make sure that these unfair and unbalanced deals do not go through in their current form.”

The development ministers also issued a statement to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which led to the EU’s foundation. The statement described eradication of poverty as the “primary and overarching objective” of EU development aid policy.

It argued, too, that the Union’s other foreign policies and activities must be consistent with that goal, that gender equality must be central to all of the Union’s aid programmes and that both the quality and quantity of aid must be enhanced.

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