African bloc shows Santer the mirror image of EMU project

Date: 09/05/1996

By Elizabeth Wise

EUROPEAN Commission President Jacques Santer will make a guest appearance this weekend at a summit of heads of state of seven West African nations linked in an economic and monetary union.

As a representative of the world's most ambitious single market, Santer's presence is supposed to give members of the Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA) inspiration for their own project.

But when he attends their summit in Burkina Faso on 10-11 May, the Commission president may well find that the UEMOA leaders have something to teach the European Union.

The seven countries agreed in 1991 that they wanted to integrate their economies, signed a treaty for economic and monetary union in 1994, created a commission to oversee it in 1995, and are now making the treaty operational by embarking on major reforms which will allow a customs union and better coordination of macroeconomic policy.

It is a track record which is bound to impress even the most fervent of integrationists in the EU.

Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo already shared a currency, the Central African franc (CFA franc), which ties them and other countries in the region to the French franc.

The seven agreed in 1962 to a monetary union (UMOA) within the franc zone.

Its colonial history makes the new UEMOA an exercise which is almost the reverse of the EU. While governments tied together in the EU's internal market are struggling to create a single currency, the UEMOA governments who share a common coinage are trying to create a single market.

“Normally, monetary integration is much more complicated than integration of markets, but they started with it because of the franc zone tradition,” said a West Africa expert at the Commission, adding: “For us, the initiative is very important. We are attached to regional cooperation, and this is a good example that we want to support.”

In almost mirror images of EU institutions, the UEMOA's bodies include a conference of chiefs of state who meet for regular summits, a council of ministers, a parliamentary committee which acts as a consultative body, and watchdogs in the form of a court of justice and a court of auditors.

UEMOA even has a commission, with its seat in Ouagadougou, a commissioner from each of the member states and a commission president.

EU officials are happy to take credit for providing the models for the UEMOA structures.

“They were formed during the years when the debate about Europe was at its height with the Maastricht Treaty, and the EU was certainly a source of inspiration,” said one.

The EU has already spent 3.8 million ecu in supporting UEMOA and officials are now drawing up a new 10-million-ecu support programme.