The Courier

George Abraham Zogo, Untitled, 1995, oil on canvas 55x50 cm.

Catalogue Zogo, Lai-momo 2001.

The uncertain future of trade, due to be liberalised between the EU and the ACP countries and the explosive political situation in the Horn of Africa dominated the most recent ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) meeting, November 20–23, 2006 in Bridgetown, the capital city of Barbados.

This open forum of elected representatives of signatories of the Cotonou Agreement is currently presided by Glenys Kinnock, a British Labour MEP, and René Radembino Coniquet, President of the Gabon Senate. It also gives all representatives of European institutions, international organisations like the UN, as well as civil society a chance to have their say. The Bridgetown JPA goes on the record for the extent of its concerns and strength of criticisms brought up by the negotiation of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and the six sub-regions of the ACP group.*
These agreements, negotiated under the Cotonou Agreement, are supposed to come into effect on January 1, 2008.

Their aim is to create ACP regional markets using trade as a tool to promote development, and in the long-term prepare free trade areas with the EU that are compatible with the rules of multilateral commerce. These rules do not look favourably on customs duties.

They are intended to gradually replace the non-reciprocal trading preferences that ACP countries have enjoyed for over 30 years for access for their goods to the European market. A waiver for these from WTO rules is due to expire at the beginning of 2008.

No forcing the pace of negotiations

Just a year before the deadline, there is broad consensus among MEPs and ACP MPs, riled about the potentially disastrous effects of such agreements for countries that are economically and socially vulnerable.

They issued a request for the EU not to force the pace of negotiations and rush into signing agreements at the end of 2007 which could run counter to ACP development interests (see box).

The European Commission can give all the assurances it likes: the EU reportedly has no hidden agenda. Any opening of ACP markets will only be gradual, with very long transitional periods, and will be asymmetric in comparison with the opening up of the European market. However, nothing could pacify defiant JPA members, not even a plea for measure issued by Louis Michel, Development Commissioner.

Heated debate on East Africa, but common view lacking

There was no such coming together over the political situation in Sudan and Ethiopia. An emergency resolution on the situation in East Africa, and in particular the Horn of Africa, was not passed, the required majority lacking.
This failure by the members of Parliament of the two parties to agree on an extremely important political question could seem like a serious setback for the ACP-EU partnership.

According to Zacharie Pandet, Senator from Congo-Brazzaville, it showed the reluctance of certain ACP members of parliament to “use their freedom of speech to openly criticise ACP governments”. The majority of ACP MPs appeared to want to protect the Khartoum government, rather focussing their criticisms of the situation on the failure to respect the Abuja Peace Agreement.

“Should we please the Sudanese government by indicating that we are satisfied, whatever it does?” asked angrily French Green Party MEP, Marie-Hélène Aubert.

The Ethiopian Ambassador, Teshome Chanaka Toga, dismissed any criticism about his country’s detention of political prisoners, taking issue instead with “the continuing campaign against Ethiopia by some MEPs and their attempt at interference”.

The absence of a resolution also reflects the difficulty in finding common ground on a draft text scrutinising the situation in five countries: Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda. Add to this the JPA’s complex procedures allowing the ACP and European MPs to make use of the ‘separate voting college’ in the event of profound disagreement and you have a recipe for failure. This does not lessen the heated debate about the Horn of Africa, which MPs vowed to continue. Glenys Kinnock, Co-President for the EU, affirmed: “I would prefer there to be no voting by colleges, because we are a single assembly with common objectives. But when we talk about democracy and human rights, sometimes the viewpoints are different. However, the JPA must adopt a position on these subjects”, said Kinnock, pointing out that six months earlier in Vienna, a resolution on the armed conflict in Sudan had isolated the representative of that country, and rallied MPs to vote jointly on a firm consensus-based text, pointing to Khartoum’s responsibility in the massacres and the unending humanitarian crisis of Darfur.

The JPA also voted on a resolution on water in developing countries, calling for fair and sustainable management of the resource to be made a political priority in ACP countries.

The resolution read that pressure should not be put on ACP States to impose privatisation and water management privatisation policies. It continued that the liberalisation of public services in these countries should guarantee water supplies and health services for all at affordable prices.

The adoption of a resolution on light weapons and small arms imports (mainly from Europe) which were denounced as a barrier to sustainable development in the ACP countries, was another achievement of this JPA. Likewise, there was a resolution on the impact of tourism on development in ACP countries, an essential source of income that should be encouraged in countries like Barbados, which derives 70% of its income from the sector.

Civil Society’s role in programming the EDF

Also under scrutiny was the programming of 10th European Development Fund monies of €22.68 billion to finance ACP-EU partnership programmes and projects, fom 2008–2013.

For Commissioner Louis Michel, good governance, building effective institutions like health, education, impartial judicial systems and support for the EPAs with regional financial allocations are all priorities. Faced with a request from the JPA that national parliaments and civil society in the ACP States should be involved in the exercise, he replied that he did not want to “to impose procedures on sovereign States”, but said he could “suggest” such consultation.

MEPs and ACP MPs held the 13th JPA in Wiesbaden, Germany, June 23–28 2007.

* West Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape-Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo), Southern and Eastern Africa (Burundi, The Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Uganda, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe), Central Africa (the eight CEMAC – Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa – countries plus the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sao Tome & Principe ), Southern Africa (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, Angola, Mozambique et Tanzania), the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) is an institution of the ACP-EU partnership. Its mission is to debate and vote on resolutions prepared by its three standing committees (political affairs, economic development, finance and trade, social affairs and the environment), and emergency resolutions on topical issues. Although not binding, these resolutions have political impact. The meeting in Barbados was the 12th of the JPA. Each meeting is preceded by a session of ACP MPs, who meet in the ACP Parliamentary Assembly. In Barbados, that ACP Assembly completed the ratification of its Charter and adopted a declaration on Togo.

We must not give into the “WTO’s diktat”

The straight talking of Billie A. Miller, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Barbados and President of the ACP Trade Ministers Committee, made quite an impression. Her message was clear: the EPAs must promote development with funds needed in addition to the 10th EDF so ACP countries can adapt to the new situation. A way around the EDF’s “rigid procedures” and slow release of monies should be found for such specific funding, she said. Without any certainty about this, there is no question of the ACP countries “allowing themselves to be terrorised by the diktat of the WTO” and the looming deadline at the end of 2007, she stated.

If the negotiations with the six ACP sub-regions have stalled, for René Radembino Coniquet, it’s because key questions are on hold. Urgent solutions are required to “ease the constraints relating to supply in the ACP countries, and find additional resources for effective application of the EPAs”, he added.

MEPs and ACP MPs put this point across in a resolution on “the status of EPA negotiations”. They emphasised that the EPAs should contribute first and foremost to sustainable socio-economic development of ACP countries through the promotion of greater value-added for the goods and services produced in ACP countries. Reciprocal free trade between the EU countries and the ACP countries is a serious risk until the competitiveness of the ACP countries’ economies is guaranteed. The EU’s current proposals for free trade worry them, in particular those for agricultural produce, because “this policy could pose problems for the development of the ACP countries”, particularly for food security and the development of local industries.

JPA members were all behind a call to the EU not to “exert undue pressure on the ACP countries” and “to take the necessary measures so that, in the event that negotiations are not completed by January 1, 2008, the current exports of ACP countries to the EU do not stop prior to reaching a final agreement”. All possible alternatives provided for in the Cotonou Agreement (Article 37), relating to ACP countries or regions who do not wish to sign an EPA without being penalised, must be properly examined, MPs told the Commission. And the improvement to rules of origin and non-reciprocal agreements (like access to the European market without customs duties or quotas, foreseen in the ‘Everything Except Arms’ initiative for Least Developed Countries) should be among options explored.

Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, raised a legal objection to the JPA’s call for additional sums for ACP States, pointing to the commitment given by the EU to raise the aid for trade allocated each year to developing countries to €2 billion by 2010. A large proportion of this budget will go to ACPs, in addition to earmarked EDF monies, to support EPA negotiations.