缅北禁地

Trade talks reach impasse at Europe-Africa summit

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade: The EU is trying to impose 鈥渁 straitjacket that does not work.鈥�

Photograph: 缅北禁地Photo / Paulo Filgueiras

A long-anticipated summit of European and African leaders vowed to build a new 鈥渟trategic partnership鈥� between the two regions, but ended mainly with general declarations and few concrete agreements. Some friction was generated by concerns over human rights issues, including the participation of the president of Zimbabwe, which prompted the UK prime minister to stay away from the 8鈥�9 December summit in Lisbon, Portugal. But more notably, the European Union (EU) failed to convince African countries to accept new 鈥渇ree trade鈥� accords.

Summarizing the African viewpoint, Alpha Oumar Konar茅, chair of the Commission of the African Union, the continent鈥檚 political organization, affirmed that Africa wants to participate in the global economy, including through expanded trade, 鈥渂ut with new rules.鈥�

The EU had originally pushed to negotiate the new accords, known as Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), by the end of December 2007, to comply with a deadline by the World Trade Organization to phase out preferential aid and trade pacts that Europe had maintained for some 30 years with its former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP). Since a majority of the 78 ACP countries are in Africa, the Lisbon summit was seen as an important step towards securing wider agreement.

But leading up to the year-end deadline, opposition to the EPAs by African governments, business groups and civil society organizations mounted (see Africa Renewal, July 2007). As proposed by the EU, the EPAs would have required ACP countries to liberalize most of their trade with the region in order to gain duty-free access to European markets. This would have allowed them to use tariffs to protect only a small portion of their own markets.

Noting that African industries are not yet able to compete with European products 鈥� some of which are heavily subsidized 鈥� Senegalese economist Moustapha Kass茅 warned on the eve of the Lisbon summit that the EPAs, if adopted, could lead to the 鈥渟ystematic dismantling of local production systems鈥� and reduce African economies to little more than 鈥渂azaars.鈥�

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade publicly declared several weeks before the summit that if he had to choose between more financial aid and protecting domestic industries from 鈥渄estructive competition,鈥� he would choose protection. Moreover, he argued, an abrupt liberalization of African trade could in the short-run reduce African budgetary receipts by 35鈥�70 per cent, since they are heavily dependent on tariff revenues. At the summit, he accused the EU of trying to impose 鈥渁 straitjacket that does not work.鈥�

African leaders were also critical of the EU鈥檚 bargaining methods. Rather than negotiating a new arrangement with the ACP group as a whole, EU officials sought separate deals with six different blocs 鈥� the Caribbean, Pacific and four sub-regions of Africa. Then when it seemed that none of those regional blocs would approve the EPAs, the EU pressed individual countries to sign 鈥渋nterim鈥� trade agreements 鈥� or face a major hike in European tariffs against their goods at the start of the new year. By the time of the summit, 13 African countries had signed such interim arrangements. In Lisbon, Mr. Konar茅 criticized efforts to play African regions against each other and to 鈥渇orce鈥� agreement on individual countries.

By the end of the summit, EU officials acknowledged that the original negotiating deadline would not be met. Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, agreed that talks 鈥渨ill require time鈥� and hoped to resume discussions on the EPAs in February. Such a willingness by European leaders to discuss Africa鈥檚 concerns, some observers pointed out, would be in the spirit of the summit鈥檚 Lisbon Declaration, which promised the development of a 鈥減artnership of equals鈥� between the two regions.