The Courier

Members of the ACP Ministerial Follow-up Committee on Cotton during their meeting at the 87th Session of the Session of the ACP Council of Ministers in Addis-Ababa, June 2008.

© Robert Iroga

Ministers from the 79-member African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of nations who met in Addis Ababa Ethiopia 9-11 June, cast doubt over whether the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) establishing free trade areas between ACP and EU states fit with their development needs.

These pacts “risk disorting regional integration,” said Mohamed Admed Awalesh, Djibouti’s Minister of National Solidarity, who chaired the ACP ministers’ meeting. This message was put over firmly to their 27 European Union (EU) counterparts at a joint meeting in the Ethiopian capital on 12-13 June.

“We in the ACP are concerned that while the progress made so far with respect to the EPA negotiations may be compatible with WTO rules, they are not adequately compatible with our development needs,” said Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Ato Meles Zenawi. Facing time constraints to conclude EPAs by 31 December 2007, ACP States ended up signing interim agreements in smaller trading blocs, or individually, rather than in groups as originally intended, said ACP ministers. The Caribbean Forum, CARIFORUM, is the only ACP body to have to date initialled a region-wide full EPA.*

Ministers also voiced concern over further erosion of trade preferences on sugar and bananas in ongoing World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks. In a statement, they said it would be extremely difficult to associate themselves with any consensus in the ongoing Doha WTO Round without “suitable treatment” for these products. And high oil prices which have pushed up transport costs could undermine the effectiveness of €1.24 bn of EU funds already earmarked for Multi Annual Adaptation Strategies (MAAS) in some ACP sugar-producing countries to offset the EU sugar price cuts.

ACP states called on the European Commission to ensure that sugar is not included as a tropical product in the ongoing Doha Round of world trade talks and to maintain the current Special Safeguard Clause for sugar products with high sugar content. They also called on the Commission to examine the potential risks of buyers and importers trying to take advantage of the EU price cuts.

ACP countries urged their EU partners to reject any proposal to drastically reduce the current applied rate of €176 per tonne for non-ACP bananas imported into the EU. Dr Arnold Thomas, Ambassador in Brussels for the Eastern Caribbean States (ECS), said that the banana was in every sense a “burning” issue. “It burns up our pay cheques, it burns up our livelihood, it burns up our employment and it burns up the level of socio-economic development that we have achieved over the past four decades,” he told ACP ministers.

*The Caribbean Forum of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states (CARIFORUM) includes: Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St.Vincent & the Grenadines, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba. The EU initialled an EPA on 16 December 2007 with all CARIFORUM members apart from Cuba.