DEVELOPMENT: EU Faces Test of Lessons from Cancun

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Sep 30 2003 (IPS) - A leading civil society group has called on the European Union to produce effective cooperation with a group of developing nations in new trade talks.

Trade officials from the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries will meet in Brussels later this week to renew trade negotiations. The first of these meetings will be held October 2.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are concerned that a failure by the EU to negotiate successfully with these countries could undermine the integrity of the group. The group of 79 ACP countries includes the 41 least developed countries.

EU officials will discuss Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with representatives of the ACP group. The WTO-compatible trading arrangements will be negotiated on the basis of trade liberalisation, regional integration, and differentiation according to the level of development.

These partnerships are due to be concluded in December 2007. The declared EU aim is to help integrate the ACP nations into the world economy while reducing and ultimately eradicating poverty.

The new round of negotiations is crucial because it will be the first test of EU trade positions after Cancun. Following the failed World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks, the NGO Eurostep says the stakes have been raised for both sides.

Representatives from this group say that the trade ministers meeting at Cancun proved that if a costly collapse of trade negotiations is to be averted, richer countries will have to respond to the concerns of coalitions of developing countries.

Eurostep, a network of autonomous European non-governmental development organisations, says that many ACP economies, particularly the least developed countries, are poorly placed for free trade with an economic giant like the EU.

“The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, coupled with free trade could drive ACP agricultural sector producers out of their own national and regional markets as EU goods made cheaper by subsidies flood ACP markets in the absence of protective tariffs and quotas,” Eurostep director Simon Stocker said in a statement Monday.

Guggi Laryea, policy advisor at Eurostep urged the ACP countries to learn from the failed talks in Cancun. “One of the clear lessons from Cancun is that if developing countries group together, they have the power to resist the demands of developed countries,” he told IPS.

The first phase of the EPA negotiations opened in Brussels Sep. 27 last year. It aimed to define common issues and approaches that would determine the framework for regional arrangements. The negotiations proved inconclusive.

The ACP group now hopes that the EU will come to an agreement on some issues such as safeguard clauses and dispute settlement mechanisms before the ACP group breaks up into regional negotiations with the EU.

“This agreement should guarantee equality among the ACP regions and protect the solidarity of the ACP Group,” a spokesperson for the ACP secretariat in Brussels told IPS.

Regional negotiations between the EU and Central Africa and West Africa are set to take place October 4 and 6 respectively, in spite of the unfinished first round of talks. This will be the first time in more than 25 years of ACP-EU relations that sub-regions of the ACP will hold direct negotiations with the EU.