Reinforcing ACP-EU partnership in the face of new vulnerabilities

Interview with David Matongo, Co-chair of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly After 24 years as chairman, or managing director, David Matongo continued to work in business whilst launching a political career in his native Zambia.

Matongo is currently Chairman and Director of David and Dash Holdings Limited and is director or member of the boards of many local and international bodies. He holds degrees in business management from universities in Zambia, India, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In a speech delivered on 16th May at the JPA meeting in Budapest Hungary, his straight talking put across the current contentions between ACP and EU partners.

The Courier - How do you perceive the current role of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly?

David Matongo – It’s my hope that with the entry into force of the Treaty on European Union and EU enlargement, the JPA will utilise its now more prominent role. The Lisbon Treaty has accorded the European Parliament significant co-decision powers. The EP will henceforth play a more significant role in trade, commercial and agricultural policies. It will have increased powers with regard to the final text of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). EU negotiators will have to report to the Parliament’s International Trade Committee on a regular basis. The parliament could be a potential ally in safeguarding ACP concerns.

TC – Did the ACP and EU parliamentarians have to deal with contentious issues at the last meeting of the JPA?

DM - The main contentious issue is the need for the Doha Development Round (World Trade Organisation) to buttress the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the ACP and EU countries.

The EPAs are basically unacceptable for one reason. There is no development assistance to back them up. For instance, when poor countries join the WTO or organisations such as the Common market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), we lose incomes from custom duties as we open borders unless we find support to improve the quality of our products in order to compete with EU, Western countries or India and China. The US and the West give US$400M annually in subsidies to their farmers. When we provide subsidies so that our farmers can export to the US or to Europe, the WTO says no to subsidies. We need funding until our fragile manufacturing and production processes upgrade. So an EPA without the Doha development agenda is like a house without a foundation. And our partners have to understand that.

TC – In your view, what are the main developmental challenges facing ACP countries?

DM – The EPAs. EPAs are to “foster the smooth and gradual integration of ACP countries into the world economy”. For the ACP, however, integration into the world economy is not an end in itself but being seen only as a means of promoting larger objectives.

EPAs are primarily supposed to be instruments of development, aimed at contributing to poverty eradication in ACP countries. Up to now, little attention has been paid to the exact role future EU-ACP trade arrangements, such as EPAs, can play in supporting the structural transformation of ACP economies. Equally, the relationship between the EU’s approach to regional and bilateral trade with ACP countries and its approach to multilateral negotiations need to be clarified.

In a development round, it is legitimate that the developed countries make more compromises to enable the weaker and more vulnerable partners to have access to their markets. But access without the capacity to produce would remain meaningless. It is vital, therefore, that the European Union agrees on a package that would help to build supply capacity in the developing countries, in particular the weakest and most vulnerable among them..

TC - What is the value of the ACP Group of States as an entity given the diversity of development issues across regions?

DM - I strongly believe that as ACP States, united we stand and divided we fall. The ACP Group of States is extremely valuable within the South-South cooperation framework. South-South development cooperation represents a paradigm shift from traditional North-South cooperation. New donors from emerging economies share the knowledge gained through their own development experience with other developing countries. And then, fundamentally different to traditional cooperation, they also listen to and learn from developing country partners. They listen to learn what their specific development needs are and they consider what they learn from their partners of great importance to their own development as well. The result is not only an effective solution to real developmental problems but a strong impulse to build lasting South-South relationships as well.

The ACP Group Secretariat, representing 79 developing countries, could be well placed to play the role of knowledge hub for ongoing South-South cooperation initiatives and facilitate further cooperation and coalition building to expand the scope of South-South cooperation. The ACP’s long and unique cooperation experience with the EU could also provide a platform for learning and exchange to expand the scope and leverage of triangular, South-South-EU development cooperation.

TC - The ACP Group is looking at its future after the year 2013. In Brussels, there’s a feeling that the ACP group’s importance has declined. What’s the future of the Group?

TC - At its 92nd session, held from 8 to 10 December 2010, the ACP Council of Ministers took a decision approving the creation of an Ambassadorial Working Group to examine the prospects for the future of the ACP Group. The joint history between Europe and the countries of the ACP goes back to the period of the Empires. After the Cotonou Agreement (2000-2020) has disappeared, we need to find a new kind of relationship between us. The Lisbon Treaty should find a way of keeping this relationship. That is of major importance for both the ACP and EU with the emergence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

We are facing new unprecedented challenges: a world in which global economic imbalances linked to poverty, deepening inequalities and worsening climate conditions are creating a fearful vortex of chaos and mutual vulnerabilities for rich and poor alike.

H. Goutier & D. Percival