Stories written by Moussa Dembele Demba
Demba Moussa Dembele, Director of the African Forum on Alternatives.

AFRICA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION: WHICH WAY FORWARD?

By Moussa Dembele Demba and - -
After African leaders nearly unanimously refused to sign Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Commission (EC) a year ago, EC resorted to the divide and conquer tactics and arm-twisting with individual countries to convince them to sign \"interim agreements\", writes Demba Moussa Dembele, director of the African Forum on Alternatives (Senegal). In this article, the author writes that the struggle against the EPAs in their current form must continue and even redouble. The ongoing food, energy, and financial crises are inextricably linked to the implementation of \"free trade\" policies and unregulated capital flows and offer a preview of what is in store for African countries if they enter into a \"free-trade\" agreement with the EU. Africa must avoid any free-trade agreement that would aggravate its domination and the plunder of its resources. On the contrary, Africa must reject the EPAs in their current form and move toward alternatives. This does not mean a rejection of any kind of cooperation with Europe. Africa wants a genuine form of cooperation with Europe free of neocolonial paternalism, domination, and exploitation, and based on mutual respect and the promotion of mutual interests.

ABRIDGED VERSION OF THE 2960-WORD ORIGINAL ARTICLE, ALSO AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION: EUROPE SELF-SERVING IN TRADE TALKS WITH AFRICA

By Moussa Dembele Demba and - -
The European Commission is pursuing a hidden agenda in its negotiations of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with African countries, writes Demba Moussa Dembele, Director of the African Forum on Alternatives. In this analysis, Dembele writes that the EC, claiming it wants to promote trade and investment in Africa, included the so-called \'\'Singapore issues\'\' dropped from 2003 WTO discussions following the strong opposition of African and other developing countries, which do not want to lock themselves into binding agreements on elements that are key policy instruments in their development process, particularly for industrialization. Such binding investment agreements would straightjacket African countries for the foreseeable future. This is why African and other ACP countries have emphatically reiterated their opposition to including these policies in the EPA negotiations. The best way to promote trade and investment in Africa is to address the fundamental issues of development raised by African countries, by assisting them in capacity- and infrastructure- building, in strengthening the process of regional integration, in developing the capacity to transform their raw materials domestically, and in building strong regional markets.
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