EU-AFRICA-CARIBBEAN-PACIFIC TRADE: UNEQUAL PARTNERS, UNFAIR RULES

The December 31 deadline for ratification of the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and the ACP Group (Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific) should be extended for negotiating these agreements, writes Luisa Morgantini, vice president of the European Parliament. In this analysis, Morgantini writes that numerous studies show the effect of eliminating preferences and implementing the sort of trade liberalisation that the EU wants to introduce would be devastating to the African economies. Two economies at completely different phases of development should not be treated as if they were equal. It is wrong to pretend that the liberalisation \'\'of almost all trade\'\' between them can generate development. The assumption that the EPAs and WTO rules are unavoidable ignores the possibility of working through this organisation to change the rules. It is to be hoped that the Commission will listen to the arguments of the many voices who have called for an extension of the deadline for negotiating the EPAs, for exclusion of discussion of the \'\'Singapore issues\'\', and for the EPAs to be transformed into true instruments of co-operation for development and not mere free-trade accords.