Hopes fade for early deal to replace Lomé

Date: 30/09/1999

By Gareth Harding

FEARS are growing that the EU and its African, Caribbean and Pacific partners will not be able to settle their differences over how to overhaul the trade and aid agreement between the two blocs before it expires in February.

ACP deputy-head Carl Greenidge says that "judging by the progress made in the last year", he does not think a deal will be concluded within the next five months, while Finnish Development Minister Satu Hassi has warned of "serious difficulties" if the two sides fail to agree on a successor to the Lomé Convention in time to meet the deadline.

"We would be in a legal vacuum and there are no guarantees that the World Trade Organisation would give a new waiver if we prolong the existing convention," Hassi told European Voice, adding that ACP countries would also see their aid package shrink if a new deal was not reached.

The two senior negotiators' comments reflect growing frustration over the snail's pace of the talks, which have been crawling along for almost a year without making any real progress.

Speaking to MEPs last week, the Finnish minister said that talks between the two sides had entered a difficult stage, with many crucial questions still unanswered. She said the main problem facing EU negotiators was that Europe's former colonies had failed to propose any alternatives to the existing convention.

But Greenidge vigorously denied the charge, adding: "It is easy to come up with a fad - such as free trade - that bears no resemblance at all to the problems the countries themselves face, but the reality is that the EU has obligations under both the Lomé Convention and the WTO," he said.

One of the sticking points is an argument over what core principles should underpin any future accord. The Union wants a clause on good governance to be included, but ACP countries say they do not see why they should be lectured on corruption by a European Commission which has been mired in sleaze.

Hassi insists the 71 ACP states are "too suspicious" of the EU's aims. "They are afraid that we are trying to find new ways of cutting aid to ACP countries, but we just want a new tool for dialogue," she said.

Disputes over the scale and pace of market-opening are another major stumbling block. The EU wants to sign free-trade accords with regional groups of states by 2005, but its former colonies remain sceptical of the benefits of rapid market liberalisation.

Top negotiators will attempt to iron out their differences at a meeting in the Bahamas next month, but there are few hopes of a breakthrough before trade ministers meet for what its scheduled to be the final round of talks in December.

Greenidge insisted this week that the two blocs would not be able to settle their differences at the high-level summit unless the EU was willing to make a "much more generous offer." The Union is, however, under enormous pressure from the WTO to wean countries in the ACP region off the generous subsidies they have enjoyed for the last 25 years and appears unwilling to back away from its free-trade crusade.

Fears are growing that the EU and its African, Caribbean and Pacific partners will not be able to settle their differences over how to overhaul the trade and aid agreement between the two blocs before it expires in February 2000.