Doubts over Lomé cloud celebrations

Date: 26/10/1995

By Shada Islam

EU governments and 70 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries are set to sign a revised Lomé Convention trade and aid package in Mauritius next month, bringing to an end almost 15 months of difficult and often acrimonious negotiations.

The celebrations in Port Louis on 4 November will be short-lived, however. Even as they raise their champagne glasses to toast the new five-year deal, EU and ACP ministers and diplomats will be trying to come up with ideas for reinvigorating their 20-year-old relationship. If they cannot, the Lomé Convention will not survive beyond the year 2000.

“Planning for the future is our biggest challenge today,” said a veteran ACP diplomat. “The meeting in Mauritius is the start of a process of interrogation. We have to rethink our relations with Europe.”

It will not be easy. If negotiations on the new Lomé package are any indication, EU governments, with the exception of France, are gradually losing interest in what used to be described as the perfect 'model' for north-south relations.

“The era of special relationship is over,” argues Peter Pooley, former acting Director- General for development at the European Commission. “The EU is broadening its relations. Also, development aid is not as popular as it used to be.”

Still, ACP diplomats, accustomed to being treated as the EU's 'special friends', were taken aback earlier this year when Britain, Germany and the Netherlands said they were going to slash their contributions to the Lomé aid fund.

The lack of enthusiasm for the convention shown by newcomers, Sweden, Finland and Austria, also shocked ACP states. The group was convinced that the Nordics, given their impressive track record on international development issues, would be sympathetic to ACP needs. Instead, they were told that new members did not share the other EU states' 'colonial responsibility'.

Angry ACP ministers denounced the EU attitude, arguing that governments in developing countries could hardly be expected to complete the difficult process of economic reform, create jobs, educate people and introduce democracy, if the West denied them access to badly-needed funds.

The ACP group requested 15.8 billion ecu in aid, up from the 12.1 billion ecu it received during 1990-95. After months of bitter debate, the EU's final offer amounted to 14.7 billion ecu.

“We are disappointed,” admitted John Momis, ACP spokesman and Papua New Guinea's Minister for Information after his group accepted the new aid package on 1 July. “This is natural when one receives less than one requested.”

As part of the deal, ACP states have accepted tougher EU aid disbursement procedures and a new clause which explicitly links all EU trade and aid benefits to ACP efforts to promote democracy and human rights. The EU says it will consult ACP countries before suspending application of the convention - except in 'emergency circumstances'. The group has also won additional concessions for their exports of farm and industrial goods to markets in Europe.

The focus now is on the future. Signalling a tougher EU approach, ACP Commissioner João de Deus Pinheiro has warned that he intends to secure the “best value for each ecu spent in the ACP states”.

He also talks about making sure that the EU keeps to a “triple C approach” in its dealings with the ACP. Pinheiro says there must be a coherence between EU actions in the ACP region compared with its policy in other areas, a more effective coordination between the aid projects funded by the Commission and EU member states, and more complementarity between the development policies followed by the Commission and EU governments.

Others have started looking beyond the present convention. There are suggestions that instead of continuing with the vast Lomé enterprise, the EU should clinch separate trade and aid pacts, geared to the needs and priorities of different regions within the ACP group.

“But this could be done while conserving the large Lomé umbrella,” argues an ACP diplomat. “The convention could be preserved, the ACP group doesn't have to break up. And yet we could have regional agreements, bringing the benefits of a more tailor-made approach.”

Others argue that the whole rationale behind the exclusive EU-ACP relationship needs to be reviewed. “The Lomé Convention was always difficult to justify under GATT and the World Trade Organisation,” says Peter Pooley. “Now it's living on borrowed time.”

The convention did secure a GATT waiver earlier this year, exempting it from the agency's non-discriminatory rules. But the agreement has been criticised by the United States because of the Lomé preferences given to ACP banana exporters. Other developing countries have never stopped arguing that the convention contravenes WTO principles on free trade.

Perhaps to stop such attacks, ACP officials say their group is anxious to establish its international credentials. “We are thinking about opening negotiations with the US and Japan,” says an African diplomat, but adds reassuringly: “Such cooperation links would be complementary to our Lomé relationship.”

Pooley recommends that post-2000, the EU should define its aid goals and targets more precisely. “There must be more possibilities for differentiation between ACP countries,” he insists, arguing that while there could still be a common “Lomé framework”, member countries must be allowed “different levels of participation”.

“There are precious parts of Lomé which need to be preserved,” Pooley insists. The convention has fostered a “total relationship” between the EU and the ACP group, which covers political, economic and trade ties. He argues that as ACP countries grow, they will become important outlets for EU goods. European aid is not about “guilt and obligation,” says Pooley. “Quite simply, it's in our economic interest to make sure that developing countries keep developing.”