Ministers call for ‘generous’ interim deals for ACP exports

Member states will urge the European Commission to allow developing countries to export a maximum of products to the EU in the absence of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which are unlikely to be signed before the end of the year deadline.

Development ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday (20 November) will discuss the EPAs and what plans need to be put in place to allow African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states to continue to export goods to the EU when the current preferential system ends on 1 January.

Some member states, especially Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Ireland, want such interim deals to be as generous as possible for the ACP countries. "A lot of member states are looking for assurances that the Commission will work within the maximum flexibility for these interim arrangements. From the EU’s perspective the biggest disaster would be if there were no ACP goods on our market on 1 January," said one EU diplomat.

Bert Koenders, the Dutch development minister, said that he expected a full evaluation from the Commission on how the EPAs negotiations are proceedings. "We want to ensure that the outcome of this is clearly asymmetric in the sense that there are longer periods for developing countries to adjust [to trade liberalisation]," he told European Voice.

ACP countries are also warning against the Commission holding out for regions to sign the EPAs while not putting in place adequate interim deals.

"Whatever we do there should be no disruption of supply of trade. Politically it is going to be very damaging to the EU because we are going to put at risk the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of people," Arvin Boolell, the Mauritian minister of agro-industry and fisheries, said last week (9 November).

The Commission is in negotiations this week with three of the six regions - east-south Africa, southern Africa and the Pacific - but none is expected to sign EPAs by the end of year deadline. The Caribbean was the one region where a deal was expected before the end of the year but recent negotiations have run into problems over the amount of products which can be excluded from initial trade liberalisation. Henry Jeffries, minister for foreign trade and international co-operation of Guyana, which is part of the Caribbean regional grouping, said that Peter Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, recently told negotiators that up to 20% of products could be excluded but a follow-up Commission briefing suggested just 6% would be excluded. "Mandelson mentioned 20% in Montego Bay. Now that all seemed like we were working nice and then they turn up with this thing saying something like 6%," he said.

Not all EU member states want generous deals for ACP states to allow their products onto the EU market in the absence of a full agreement on 1 January. France and Spain are concerned about competition for some of their agricultural products.

The Commission says that it wants support from the member states to continue negotiating the EPAs while allowing for market access for certain products after 1 January.

Member states will urge the European Commission to allow developing countries to export a maximum of products to the EU in the absence of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which are unlikely to be signed before the end of the year deadline.