Economic Partnership Agreements: What’s the best way forward?

By the end of 2007 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries are supposed to have signed Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU. The EU has been trying to come up with a replacement for its current trade preferences for these countries since 1996. Negotiations with six regional groups
of countries began in 2003. But with just a few months to go before the deadline expires, several of the negotiations are stalled.

Some people think the Commission might apply last-minute pressure to force through a deal. That would be a big mistake. It is vital to get the right agreements in place, not just any old agreements.

EPAs matter because for the first time developing countries will be given a fixed timetable to drop their barriers to imports from the EU. They are being asked to eliminate roughly 80% of their trade barriers against the EU over the next decade.

Some ACP countries complain that they are being put under pressure to negotiate on the Commission’s terms and they are particularly concerned that the Commission has failed to give time for proper impact assessments, and has
dismissed their concerns.

The Commission still insists that everything is just fine. It sticks to its line that no ACP country has lodged an official complaint nor asked formally for alternatives to
EPAs.

But as the deadline looms there are signs that all is not well. A report earlier this year from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa was clear that there
has been too much focus on a rigid timetable for liberalisation and too little on the needs of developing countries.

Whilst the EU is right to emphasise the importance of integrating African countries in the global economy, EPAs in their current form are the wrong way to achieve this.

This paper by Open Europe sets out proposals for a more flexible model, and more realistic timetable, for EPAs. It stresses that in the immediate term the EU must take the threat of higher tariffs after 2007 off the table, as well as firmly reject making aid money conditional on signing up to EPAs.

The EU needs some joined-up thinking. EU leaders cannot seriously present themselves as being committed to development if at the same time they are sanctioning coercive trade tactics in order to bounce developing countries into hastily negotiated and badly thought-through agreements. A better way forward for EPAs is still possible, and the outcome is still very much in the EU’s hands. But in order to achieve a deal that works for developing countries, the EU must now take a different approach to the negotiations.