Lomé prepares to break with convention

Date: 17/04/1997

ALTHOUGH most of Europe's former colonies in the African, Caribbean and Pacific region have enjoyed political independence for 30 to 40 years, they remain institutionally shackled to their old masters.

But all that could be about to change.

Since 1975, the relationship between the Union and the 70 countries which make up the ACP has been encapsulated in the Lomé Convention, both criticised as a stifling trade-aid instrument and praised as the last and greatest bastion of western charity to the third world.

Uniting Europe's 15 industrial giants with 70 rural dwarves, the convention offers the world's poorest economies preferential access to Union markets, technical assistance and a forum to discuss political issues.

In financial terms, the EU disburses more than 20 billion ecu a year to the ACP members.

But as the world trading system begins to take on a life of its own, the arrangement is beginning to look rather outdated. With negotiations on a new Lomé Convention expected to begin in 1998, everyone is getting ready for a shake-up which will go to the very heart of the Union's aid philosophy.

First of all, the convention's preferential deals are under increasing scrutiny in the World Trade Organisation, which argues that they undermine genuine development both in the Lomé countries and their competitors.

Lomé currently enjoys WTO derogations until the end of the millennium and could theoretically have them extended for another decade. But a recent critical report from the trade body on the convention's banana regime, which favours ACP producers at the expense of those in Latin America, has been widely interpreted as spelling doom for such hopes.

Secondly, the EU - especially those members of the bloc without colonial traditions - is beginning to ask whether its ties to the ACP countries should not be reassessed, given its new concerns in eastern Europe and the southern Mediterranean.

Financial support from Union coffers for Europe's closest neighbours has risen steadily at a time when more traditional aid contributions have dried up. Germany and the UK have been notable for their decreasing commitment to the ACP.

Finally, many of the recipient countries themselves are asking why, after 20 years of multilateral cooperation, they remain as poor as ever while the rest of the world is progressing in leaps and bounds.

While in the late 1990s the Union is courting Asia's tiger economies with cap in hand, it continues to dictate terms to the poverty-stricken South much as it did 100 years ago.

When foreign ministers from both sides of the rich-poor divide meet next week, these questions will hang heavily in the air.

Things have, without doubt, started to move. The European Commission released an anxiously awaited discussion paper on the future of Lomé last year, building on the much-vaunted mid-term review of Lomé IV in 1995.

At the time of the review, the Commission proclaimed loudly that it was moving away from old-style trade aid and towards a more sustainable development model. It also introduced, for the first time, a clause tying EU aid to democratic reform.

The 1996 Green Paper was more cautious, shying away from recommending any hard and fast policy changes. It did, however, lay down the main questions which Lomé V - should it happen at all - would have to address.

It asked whether there was any room for poor-country trade preferences in the global free market, whether the ACP should remain a single entity or be split into its constituent parts and whether it should take in new members, such as Bangladesh or Vietnam.

It also asked how the so-called 'partnership' between EU and ACP states could be rekindled and how the Union could become more coherent in its policies towards the developing world, given that its agriculture regime can in effect take away more than it gives in aid.

These and many other questions have galvanised the development community over the past few months.

The ACP has launched widespread consultations among its members and hopes to present a formal response to the Commission soon.

It is already clear that ACP states will argue strongly for a continuation of Lomé: acting ACP President Sitiveni Rabuka said last month that they were “unanimous in desiring that our partnership should be strengthened, intensified and expanded to meet the exigencies of the international era”.

This reflects their fears that, without an active political alliance, the EU, US and Asia will increasingly carve out the global trade regime without them.

A recent WTO agreement on white spirits, which Rabuka roundly condemned, showed that the group's concerns were not unfounded. The deal was struck following US complaints that the Union favoured ACP rum producers.

“One would have expected the EU to assist ACP countries in reducing the impact of making their trade compatible with WTO rules,” said Rabuka.

“Instead, the Union is accelerating the marginalisation of the group. If there are no consolations on issues of trade, what issues can we call mutual?”

The ACP's position is less clear on other matters, given the wide range of views among its member countries, but there is widespread recognition that Lomé's trade protocols and export stabilisation regimes will need to be reworked.

ACP countries also favour keeping Lomé's umbrella structure together, although perhaps with more regional-specific work being carried out within a looser framework.

The Caribbean countries originally argued in favour of separation, but now feel that their links with Africa are a useful counter to European and American squeezing.

The Pacific countries are terrified of being left out in the cold, with no support from Europe or the rich Pacific rim countries, and Africa's least-developed nations fear ghettoisation, in effect becoming a poor sub-division of an already poor group of nations.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have also launched themselves vigorously into the debate, demanding the eradication of poverty, more decentralised cooperation and more sensitivity to the negative effects of trade liberalisation at a conference in Brussels last week.

“NGOs will judge the new partnership between the EU and ACP countries according to how clearly it addresses the fundamental problems facing people in the South and meets their aspirations,” said Gordon Deuchars, of the EU-NGO Liaison Committee.

But this excitement has yet to spill over into the European public at large. Most of the Union's citizens are finding it hard enough to cope with economic and monetary union or treaty reform without worrying about aid to the world's poorest countries.

The Dutch presidency, recognising this problem, held a special meeting on public support for international cooperation this week, just before a follow-up conference on the future of EU-ACP relations.

Even those people who benefit from the Lomé regime find it hard to keep track of what it achieves in comparison to the World Bank, USAid and a host of other bilateral initiatives, explains Deuchars.

All of this leaves the Commission's administrators, due to draft a definitive proposal by the end of this year, in a perplexingly difficult position.

In a relative vacuum of public interest, and confronted by widely varying expert opinions, they are responsible for the future of the EU's foreign policy towards the world's most vulnerable countries.

It is a burden which does not escape them. “This is a relationship that came about almost by accident,” explained a senior Lomé administrator. “But that does not hide the fact that under the Treaty of Rome we have a special duty to these nations.”