Pacific and EU chart course for new accord
Oceans apart, sheer distance seems to be a gulf for improved trade cooperation between the Pacific and the European Union (EU).
“Smaller states will benefit from a regional fisheries agreement” Patteson Oti, alternate EPA Pacific lead negotiator.
© Secretariat of the Pacific Community
The Pacific and the EU are navigating a different course to the other five regional ACP groupings currently negotiating European Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the EU whose centerpiece is free access to eachothers’ markets with development assistance to take advantage of new openings, all due to come on stream from 2008.
Out of the fourteen Pacific ACP islands; Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu currently negotiating an EPA, it is the smaller States who say they will not gain as much as other ACP regions from the improved market access on the table. East Timor, also a Pacific ACP State has been monitoring negotiations but having been busy with State-building has opted not to participate directly in EPA talks to date.
EU Statistics reveal that the Pacific currently exports just 10% of its goods and produce to the EU and takes just 5% of total imports from the EU. Two Pacific countries dominate this exchange; Papua New Guinea and Fiji accounting for 90% of this export figure, mainly due to sugar, and absorbing 40% of imports.
Patteson Oti, Foreign Minister for the Solomon islands and alternate lead EPA negotiator for the Pacific, indicated to ‘The Courier’ that an agreement on duty free and quota free exports by Pacific to the EU would benefit in particular the bigger countries of the region; Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomons and Fiji. Pacific States are individually considering whether to sign up to a goods agreement under the EPA.
Minister Patteson said Pacific countries feared that opening doors further to EU goods and produce could trigger other nations to ask for the same benefits in the World Trade Organisation under the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause.
He added the Pacific was eyeing a regional EU fisheries agreement beyond the handful of existing bi-lateral ones for Pacific ACPs. The Pacific also has its compass set on more temporary labour mobility for semi-skilled workers in the EU – largely an EU Member State national issue anyway – and changes to the EU’s rules of origin which do not currently take into account the Pacific’s distance from other ACP nations, vulnerability and size of many States.
He said the Pacific wanted a package of assistance to take advantage of the new opportunities under the EPA, notably for smaller States from human resources training to fisheries surveillance and to cushion any adverse effects of an EPA. €76 million – with a possible 25% top-up – have already been allocated under the 10th EDF’s Regional Indicative Programme for the Pacific 15, 2008-2013, in addition to EU funds for each individual Pacific nation under the so-called National Indicative Programmes.
“We recognise the uniqueness of the islands as guardians of the Pacific ocean, which can be considered a global public good with resources which must be sustainably managed in the interests of the islands. The financial instruments of the Cotonou Agreement are there to allow the region to capitalise on the EPA provisions and their potential for economic growth respectful of environmental protection”, said Francesco Affinito, Deputy Head of Unit for the Pacific in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Development.
