Mandelson pledges a new and better deal for Africa

By David Cronin

Date: 27/01/05

The trade policy pursued by the new European Commission will be a litmus test for the Union's relations with Africa. Will it be adjusted to ensure that the continent's producers are given fair access to the world's markets or used as a vehicle to sell European food at rock-bottom prices?

Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson claims the former must happen, especially as EU policymakers devise the successor to the Cotonou Agreement. This accord, signed in 2000, underpins the EU's ties with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc. It will expire in late 2007.

To replace it, the Commission is negotiating economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the ACP countries. But anti-poverty activists claim the EPAs will do more harm than good for Africa.

In a paper prepared by campaign groups including Oxfam, Christian Aid and Action for Southern Africa, it is alleged that African countries are being requested to open their borders to European goods, receiving little in return from the EU side. This accusation is largely based on a demand made by the Commission that ACP states eliminate their customs duties on more than 90% of EU goods destined for their markets.

"ACP countries would face a dramatic reduction in their ability to protect themselves and their producers from cheap, often subsidised EU goods, flooding their markets and putting local farmers and small-scale manufacturers out of business," the paper says. There has been an "alarming increase" since the early 1990s, it notes, of EU exports of cereal, meat, dairy products, sugar, fruit and vegetables to countries like Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Cameroon.

Anti-poverty activists are asking Mandelson to consider replacing the EPAs with 'Everything But Arms'. At present, this scheme only applies to the 50 least-developed countries in the world but campaigners recommend extending it to all 77 members of the ACP bloc. Observers say that the Commission's directorate-general (DG) for trade rejects this idea.

"EPAs are primarily being driven by legalistic constraints drawn up decades ago, combined with an aggressive agenda by DG Trade, whose officials are more used to beating out trade deals with powerful blocs than delivering development outcomes," argues Matt Griffith from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development.

Last week Mandelson promised he would address the concerns of relief agencies by introducing a "review mechanism" to assess if the EPAs are geared towards combating poverty. Yet sources close to him say there is no likelihood he will abandon the most controversial element of the EPA project - the so-called Singapore issues. These cover government procurement, investment and competition policy.

Poor countries rejected talks on these issues at the 2003 World Trade Organization ministerial in Cancún, fearing that they would be required to open up their markets indiscriminately to European corporations. But the Commission has still insisted that the issues be included in the EPA negotiations.

"Investment is a key for development and West Africa requested to have investment as part of the EPAs," says one Mandelson aide.

Nevertheless, another EU insider signalled that Mandelson realises that he needs to have cordial ties with the ACP bloc if the Doha round of world trade talks is to be brought to a successful conclusion this year. "His biggest priority is Doha and he knows you have to sugar any pill given to them [the ACP]," the source explains. "We know that the guys in DG Trade are liberalist and are taking a pretty tough line. But they don't have to deal with the political fallout, whereas Mandelson does."

Article reports on the debate whether the Economic Partnership Agreements, which were being negotiated by the EU with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to replace the Cotonou Agreement, due to expire in 2007, were helpful or rather counterproductive in the fight against poverty.