ACP-EU Trade Negotiations - Ensuring EPAs are an Effective
Tool for Development
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Discussion Group Moderator: Melissa Julian
Introduction
A radical change to the ACP-EU (African, Caribbean
and Pacific-European Union) relationship is underway. For over 25
years, the EU has granted practically totally free market access
to ACP countries' products. These preferences are not reciprocal.
ACP countries have not been obliged to grant the same preferential
treatment to European products in their own markets and have restricted
their entry by taxing them. In the framework of the ACP-EU
Partnership Agreement (commonly referred to as the Cotonou Agreement),
the parties agree to begin negotiations in September 2002 on new
development-friendly, World Trade Organisation (WTO)-compatible
trading arrangements. To this end, Economic
Partnership Agreements (EPAs) will be negotiated. These new
trade arrangements should be agreed by January 2008. The likely
result will be that the current preferential trade regime will be
split into several trade and economic cooperation agreements, where
different ACP countries and regions receive different treatment
from the EU and where the ACP countries progressively open their
markets to European products. Financial aid is intended to help
compensate the costs of trade liberalisation and of the economic
restructuring implied in this.
The impact of the new trading arrangements on the development of
ACP countries is a key debate for the upcoming negotiations.
Trade negotiations will likely be launched at an all-ACP-EU level
with a view to agreeing the basic structure, principles and content
of EPAs. ACP countries would also like, in this first phase of negotiations,
to identify and agree issues of common interest to negotiate at
an all-ACP-EU level with a view to ensuring that EPAs fulfill their
stated development objectives.
The aim of the discussion is simple, to provide information and
to identify and exchange views on possible issues of common interest
for the all-ACP-EU negotiations which would ensure that EPAs are
an effective tool to deliver the Cotonou Agreement's development
objectives. You are invited to contribute to the discussion by sharing
your information and views on this, or by raising questions that
you think need to be addressed. These will be posted in the discussion
forum, though the Discussion Group Moderator retains the right to
post only those items that contribute constructively to the discussion.
At the end of the debate a summary of the discussion will be published.
The three key questions to stimulate the debate are:
1. What provisions must EPAs include to be an effective development
tool and why?
2. What flanking measures are necessary to ensure EPAs fulfil their
stated development objectives and why?
3. Which issues should be discussed in the first all-ACP-EU phase
of negotiations and why? And what should be the duration of this
first phase of negotiations?
The intention is that the results of this internet discussion will
be transferred to the soon to be launched joint EU-LDC Network/ECDPM/ODI
website on ACP-EU Trade Relations (www.acp-eu-trade.org)
which will aim at establishing an ongoing process of networking
and discussion on these issues.
The Issue
The ACP group and the EU are currently formulating
their mandates to negotiate the new trading arrangements called
for in the Cotonou Agreement. While positions are not yet finalised,
there are indications as to the two sides' thinking on this issue
(see below). And the Cotonou Agreement itself sets out many of the
parameters of the negotiations. First and foremost, any future trade
arrangement must be subject to Cotonou's objectives of the sustainable
economic and social development of ACP countries. Economic and trade
co-operation must aim at fostering the smooth and gradual integration
of ACP states into the world economy, with due regard to their political
choices and development priorities, thereby promoting their sustainable
development and contributing to poverty eradication in the ACP countries.
Trade negotiations must also take account of the level of development
and the socio-economic impact of trade measures on ACP countries,
and their capacity to adapt and to adjust their economies to the
liberalisation process. Negotiations of EPAs will be undertaken
with ACP countries which consider themselves in a position to do
so, at the level they consider appropriate and in accordance with
the procedures agreed by the ACP Group, taking into account the
regional integration process within the ACP. The Cotonou Agreement
also provides that the preparatory period leading to the conclusion
of new trading arrangements shall be used for capacity building
in ACP countries.
On the EU side, the emphasis of EPAs is the establishment of free
trade areas, progressively eliminating tariffs and non-tariff barriers
(such as quotas) on substantially all trade between the EU and ACP
regional groupings. What items are covered and transition periods,
etc. is for detailed negotiation between the parties (please see
EC
press release on its draft mandate). The EC argues that EPAs
are the best WTO-compatible (also a Cotonou requirement) way to
meet Cotonou's objectives and are above all an instrument for development.
Regional EPAs, they argue, will establish a stable, predictable
and transparent framework for economic and trade relations between
the ACP countries and the EU, create regional economies of scale,
attract investment and increase competitiveness. This, in turn,
will lead to an increase in trade flows in the region, with the
EU and with the rest of the world, thereby promoting the sustainable
economic and social development of the ACP countries.
The EC acknowledges that EPAs can only play this development role
if appropriate account is taken of the particular economic and social
constraints of the ACP countries and if they are effectively combined
with appropriate development strategies.
Because the ACP countries and regions have not yet determined the
geographical configuration of future EPAs, the EC proposes to launch
negotiations at an all-ACP-EU level to discuss the structure and
content of EPAs.
Indications are that the ACP Group also want to launch the negotiations
at an all-ACP-EU level which focuses on cross-cutting issues of
common concern to ACP countries and which establishes the parameters
and procedures for the negotiation of the EPAs, or alternative trade
arrangements, with the EU. Decisions taken in this first phase of
negotiations will affect the scope of any subsequent trade negotiations.
ACP countries also note that implementation of EPAs, or adjustments
in anticipation of the implementation of the EPAs, will generate
a new set of additional costs to the economies of ACP countries.
The EPA negotiation process should, therefore, also aim at capacity
building to support ACP countries in this process. In particular
flanking measures should support the structural transformation of
ACP economies so that they can effectively integrate into the global
economy and reap its poverty-reducing benefits.
Possible Common Issues
For EPAs to be an effective development tool, they
must include positive provisions in key areas and be accompanied
by good government policies and support measures from the EU to
enhance the production, supply and trade capacity of ACP countries
to enable them to take full advantage of any new market opportunities
that could result from such agreements. Negotiation of many of these
issues may best be done at an all-ACP-EU level so that ACP countries
can pool their limited resources to effectively negotiate with the
more capable EU on complex issues of common interest to ensure a
more harmonised, equitable and suitable framework for EU support
to the ACP economies.
It is for the ACP countries to decide its own trade policy objectives
at national, regional and all-ACP levels. However, the Cotonou Agreement
and previous studies have indicated some potential
common issues (see this link for a more detailed list) for all-ACP-EU
level negotiation such as: the objectives, principles and procedures
for negotiating with the EU; the scope for special and differential
treatment provisions; the implications of the WTO negotiations and
EU policies; trade related concerns; support measures from the EU
to address ACP supply-side constraints and increase competitiveness,
etc.
Key Questions
For the purpose of this internet discussion,
the three key questions to stimulate the debate are:
1. What provisions must EPAs include to be an effective development
tool and why?
2. What flanking measures are necessary to ensure EPAs fulfil their
stated development objectives and why?
3. Which issues should be discussed in the first all-ACP-EU phase
of negotiations and why? And what should be the duration of this
first phase of negotiations?
Participation should take only a few minutes and one easy step
(click here to contribute to the discussion).
Contributions can also be relayed anonymously (the EU-LDC network
has a policy of respecting confidentiality and can be a trusted
facilitator) by e-mailing (melissa.julian@pandora.be)
or telephoning me in Brussels (on tel. 32 (0)2 380 3155) to request
that I contact you to relay your message over the telephone.
Additional information
ACP-EU
Partnership Agreement
ACP Secretariat
Cotonou
Info Kit
The
EU's Directorate-General for Development
The
EU's Directorate-General for Trade's ACP page
EUFORIC
on trade
Trade
Liberalization and Poverty: A Handbook
ACP-EU
Parliamentary Assembly "Cape Town Declaration" on the
forthcoming ACP/EU trade negotiations which outlines the priorities
and concerns of Joint Parliamentary Assembly members about the preparations,
scope and conduct of the forthcoming ACP-EU trade negotiations
Conclusions
of the July 2001 ACP Civil Society Forum
ACP
Informal Brainstorming Session to Prepare for Forthcoming Trade
Negotiations with the EU
"The
Future of ACP-EU Trade Relations: Overview of the discussion on
the forthcoming agenda"
Initial European
NGO comments and proposals on the Commission draft negotiating directive
for future ACP-EU trade negotiations
ECDPM/ODI
Trade Programme: ACP-EU Trade Relations
ODI
webpage on the Cotonou Agreement
Mauritius proposal
on the content of all-ACP-EU EPA
Mauritius proposal
on the all-ACP-EU EPA
Building
Capacity for Trade: A Road Map for Development Partners, ECDPM Discussion
Paper 33
"Aid
for Trade Development: Lessons for Lome V"
Trade
Negotiations Insights
"Post Lome
WTO Compatible Trading Arrangements"
Analysis of
EU Trade Arrangements with Developing and Transition Economies
EPA Watch
COMESA's EPA impact
assessment study
EPAS - External
Effects of the CAP
EPAS - The
Fiscal Dimension
EPAS - Addressing
Market Access Issues
EPAS - Addressing
Supply Side Constraints
Mauritius non-paper
- Negotiations of Economic Partnership Agreements
ACP Sugar
CTA
(The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU)
has a pilot web portal, AgriTrade, on international agricultural
trade issues in the context of ACP -EU relations. Agritrade aims
to serve and to be utilised by ACP stakeholders including officials
in the trade and agriculture Ministries as well as interested parties
in the independent sector.
The
CTA website now includes a section on ACP Sugar
RIGGED
RULES AND DOUBLE STANDARDS
Trade, Globalisation, and the Fight Against Poverty Oxfam International
ATAS - Caribbean
possibilities
African preparation
for trade negotiations in the context of the ACP-EU Cotonou Partnership
Agreement
Time for Coherence
- CAP Reform and Developing Countries (Oxfam)
The situation
of emerging NGOs in Zambia
A Development Agenda
for the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and the Pacific
ACP (PACP)
Caribbean Perspectives
on Trade, Regional Integration & a Strategic Global Repositioning
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