EU’s relations with its island territories not all plain sailing

Date: 12/09/1996

IF CRITICS of the EU's preferential trading regimes for former colonies accuse the Union of perpetuating a colonial past which no longer applies, they would probably find another raft of EU ties even more anachronistic.

Not only do some EU nations behave as though they still have colonies, they effectively do.

Together, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the UK have 20 islands or groups of islands which enjoy a privileged relationship with the Union as a whole, under the collective title of Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT).

But contrary to first appearances, the Union's developing relations with its OCT may actually have the unintended result of making these de facto colonies less colonial. For Union ties foster progress in those areas where OCT do have autonomy from their metropolises - trade and development.

Most of the time, these small, quiet outposts are largely forgotten (unless a European government decides one of them is a convenient location for testing nuclear bombs).

But the islands regularly bob up to the surface of Union politics during the budgeting season.

For the past three years, however, the trading activities of a couple of these beneficiaries of EU largesse have caused increasing consternation on mainland Europe, and Union governments are now locked in a stand-off over whether to curb those activities.

The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (and, to a much lesser extent, the British islands of Montserrat, Turks and Caicos) stand accused of abusing their privilege to export agricultural produce freely to the Union.

EU partners want the practice stopped, and the European Commission has warned that if the fight goes on long enough, the whole relationship between the Union and its members' territories could unravel when the current protocol governing it expires.

Although the islands are only effectively linked to the Union through the individual nations in whose jurisdiction they lie, they do benefit from EU development funding and social programmes.

A development funding package for the 20 OCT and 70 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations caused so much antagonism last year that it took an EU summit to resolve it. Although the real pain was inflicted by disagreements over how much money to give the ACPs, that chapter has now been closed.

But funding for the OCT still remains in limbo.

Like the ACPs, the OCT receive ten-year funding packages which are subject to a mid-term review. Now the 200-million-ecu package earmarked for the islands for 1996-2000 is being held hostage to the dispute over the Dutch Antilles' questionable farm exports.

The 900,000 OCT inhabitants receive some 220 ecu per head of EU funding, compared to the 23 ecu per head for the 600 million ACP citizens.

But EU officials defend this level of aid by pointing out that many of the people living on the OCT are Union citizens, and maintain they therefore justify a much higher level of expenditure.

The OCT are not part of Union territory as are France's outlying Départements (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane, Réunion), Spain's Canary Islands or Portugal's Azores and Madeira, and therefore do not benefit from EU budget staples such as the Common Agricultural Policy. Yet Union policy actually gives them a relative advantage over their EU partners.

Furthermore, although many of the island residents - as citizens of one of the four member states concerned - are EU nationals, Union law does not automatically apply to them.

EU members, trading freely with each other in the European single market, treat the OCT the same way. But the OCT are not inside the European single market and are therefore not obliged to return the favour. OCT are not required to give other EU nationals the right to work on their territory either.

Allocating rights to OCT residents is even more difficult than agreeing on funding. Because the islands' relationships with their European 'mothers' vary, so does their status in relation to the Union, and therefore so does the applicability of EU law and EU programmes.

Thus, for example, residents of French and Dutch OCT carry French and Dutch passports and are therefore free to travel and work in the Union, while British OCT inhabitants - apart from those on the Falkland Islands - do not yet have citizenship. (Although there is speculation that residents of the UK's Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific islands will be granted that right after Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule in 1997.)

EU programmes aimed at European citizens, mostly educational schemes such as student exchanges, are offered to OCT residents. When French and Dutch islanders successfully argued that their European citizenship entitled them to benefit from the programmes, the Commission agreed to extend them to British OCT as well.

With the concept of European citizenship, the Commission is slowly undermining the exclusivity of relations between OCT and their mother countries.

The mere fact of grouping the OCT together in 1957 and asking each of them, through the Rome Treaty, to “apply to its trade with member states and with the other countries and territories the same treatment as that which it applies to the European state with which it has special relations”, diluted the former exclusively colonial relationships.

That trend has gathered pace since 1990, when External Relations Commissioner Manuel Marín proposed to give the OCT direct political access to EU officials. Before that, Paris, London and The Hague told their EU partners what the islands wanted. Now there are three-way meetings between officials of the Commission and EU member states with locally elected ministers of the OCT; and the Commission is trying to get such meetings held on a regular, if not annual, basis.

A Commission official described the meetings as “a recognition of anti-colonial developments”, although he stressed that the Commission could not “jump over” a member state.

However, in reality, sometimes it does.

During periods when funding is being determined, senior Commission officials meet with high-level local officials on the islands without necessarily inviting representatives from the former colonial power.

Officially, since 1992, EU-funded development programmes have been agreed locally by local officials with their counterparts from the Commission and the affiliated member state.

“The aim is not to dilute colonial power. It is to recognise that the OCT have economic power. They have autonomy except over the currency and the army,” said the official, adding: “Our relations with OCT are more democratic because they concern economic development, and it is what they ask for.”

The Commission, having no power itself in the realms of foreign, defence and monetary policy, understands that position, and responds willingly when an OCT pushes for more Commission participation in economic or social areas. It is also encouraging more contacts on trade, services and maritime transport issues.

“Sometimes after we decide on a project, we will, for example, hear from the embassy that we did not consult Paris enough. But usually the relationship functions smoothly,” said the official.

The Commission has formalised its ties with OCT by establishing delegations in the Caribbean and Pacific.

It is also trying to foster regional cooperation between islands of different nationalities. But because these areas usually produce similar products and have similar import needs, that aim is not easy to realise and progress has not been as fast as some would like. And although OCT output is geared to the European market, most OCT still trade more with their mother countries than with other EU member states.

Advocates of new European ties to replace historical bonds are now faced with a philosophical contradiction.

Those OCT industries that are growing to feed a European market are now irritating farmers at home, and threatening the loyalty of the Union to the tiny, idyllic islands.