Africa is Being Rushed into Potentially Unfair EU Trade Agreements
Bob Geldof and DATA propose African Trade Initiative ahead of EU- Africa Summit
11.29.07
Africa advocacy group DATA says the European Union is rushing Africa's poorest countries into potentially disadvantageous trade agreements. The negotiations are being driven by deadlines that do not adequately recognise the continent's development and trade circumstances.
Some African countries have refused to sign the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and may face sharp tariff increases. The African countries that have signed will get 100% access to EU markets, but in return they have had to agree to specific tariff reductions on EU products. Aid-for-trade provisions and pledges to reform complex EU rules of origin are vague.
Bob Geldof, who works with DATA and has advocated extensively for a better trade deal for Africa said: "The EU's approach works perhaps from a hard-headed business perspective, but surely this can't be the way to tackle the inequalities in world trade. Everyone agrees that to trade themselves out of poverty, people must be able to engage with the global economy fairly. Repeated international promises to make trade work for Africa have been lost in haggling, acronyms and inadequate will."
Ahead of the EU-AU summit in Lisbon, DATA has launched a proposal for an African Trade Initiative. The paper calls for a fairer trade deal for Africa, especially from the EU.
Joining DATA in calling for a stronger focus on Africa's trade needs are development economist and author of The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier and Erastus Mwencha Secretary-General of COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.)
Paul Collier said: "A trade deal with Europe could be an opportunity for Africa to get better market access. It should not be an opportunity for Europe to return to the worst features of policy conditionality."
Erastus Mwencha emphasised the need for partnership: "In the ongoing EPA negotiations there is too much focus on WTO compatibility on the trade side and not on economic partnership. In other words there is no partnership as such that would allow Africa to articulate its needs. "
DATA's European Director Oliver Buston says trade rules that allow Africa time to develop are essential if the continent is to have a chance of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty.
"The EU and US could open their doors to African products tomorrow and barely feel a thing. And if they do, Brussels and Washington must not aggressively demand that African economies open their markets in return. The summit in Lisbon is a great opportunity to begin to address these issues."
DATA's African Trade Initiative is attached. In summary it proposes the following:
- Boost African access to EU and US markets by giving duty and quota free access to all sub-Saharan African countries, not only LDCs.
- Streamline rules of origin requirements, specifically by setting the African value component of all goods at 10% as recommended by the World Bank and Commission for Africa.
- Abolish developed country export and farm subsidies, giving priority to those that have the greatest impact on Africa's ability to compete - such as cotton, rice, fruits and vegetables.
- Scale up ‘aid for trade' funding with particular focus on Africa's export challenges.
- Encourage and support development of intra-regional trade.
- Allow African countries, not Brussels or Washington, to set the pace of their own countries' market liberalisation.
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