Policy recommendations

  • EPAs must ensure that ACP regional groups have maximum flexibility over their own market opening. The EU should therefore offer all ACP regional groups a period of 20 years or more for market opening, on an unconditional basis. Each regional group should be offered this full period.
  • There should be an effective safeguard mechanism for ACP countries to use if faced with a surge of subsidised EU imports.
  • The EU should stimulate regional integration in all ACP regions, according to the communication paper written in August 2008 through Regional Economic Communities and member states, by approaching regions as collective partners.
  • EPAs should be accompanied by additional resources to enable the ACP countries to benefit from trade reforms and build their export competitiveness and the EU should provide financial assistance for this to ACP regions. This assistance must support them in building the infrastructure and economic capacity they need to benefit from trade with the EU and the rest of the world, and put in place the institutions to help manage change and protect vulnerable people, supporting poorer countries with the cost of transition. Developing countries should be given time to build up specific parts of their economy, using subsidies or tariffs.
  • Investment, competition and government procurement should be removed from the negotiations, unless specifically requested by an ACP regional negotiating group. It is for ACP regional groups to judge the development benefits of any agreements on these issues and the EU should not push for them to be discussed. If included, any negotiations on government procurement should be limited to transparency.   
  • A review mechanism for EPAs - with full ACP regional group ownership and participation - should be introduced to ensure they are delivering the intended developmental benefits.  
  • The Commission should be ready to provide an alternative to an EPA at the request of any ACP country. Any alternative offered should provide no worse market access to the EU than is currently enjoyed under Cotonou preferences.
  • In addition, the EU should propose within the WTO that Article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, should be reviewed as suggested by the Commission for Africa, in order to reduce the requirements for reciprocity and increase the focus on development priorities.

Case: Economic Partnership Agreements

26-03-2009 The European Parliament takes its chance to show commitment to development!

Yesterday, March 25th 2009, MEPs voted for the final and improved resolution regarding the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Cariforum, 14 Caribbean states. MEPs showed their commitment to incorporating development firmly in the EPA. Fair Politics EU warmly welcomes the decision by the Parliament to do so, and encouraged it to do so only last week.

                           

As stated in the previous article on this web site discussing the development-related substance of the EPA concluded between the EU and Cariforum, the motion for a resolution, as presented during the plenary session in Strasbourg yesterday March 25th, lacked the necessary attention for key development elements. Seeing as one of the primary goals of concluding EPAs is that trade should service the development of the ACP countries, this was clearly a huge deficit. 

Among important issues that were neglected in this motion, were the prevention of the consequences of applying strict Intellectual Property Rights provisions to the access to essential medicines in developing countries, and the fact that financial means that will be used to support the transition of liberalisation of the markets in ACP countries cannot be subtracted from the European Development Fund.

Initially, a first draft for this resolution did enclose both of these points. However the vote, late February, in the International Trade committee of the EP on this document, resulted in a less development-minded version, which we of course regretted deeply. The EU Coherence Programme feels that the European Parliament should express very clearly to the Council and the Commission that certain important development goals in the EPA with Cariforum should not be neglected. Also, other (interim)EPAs under negotiation or concluded with various regional clusters should include solid and substantial development chapters for that matter. By doing so, the EU would live up to its promise to make trade work for development.

Luckily the final resolution that has been voted on by the whole European Parliament gave voice to these concerns. Please find below a few provisions from the adapted resolution to illustrate the development aspects now included:

(The European Parliament)

Calls for an early determination and provision of an equitable share of the Aid for Trade resources; stresses that the Commission and the EU Members States should ensure that these funds represent additional resources and are not merely a repackaging of the European Development Fund (EDF) funding, that they conform to Cariforum priorities. (19)

urges the Commission not to seek to harmonise intellectual property rights standards upwards beyond what is appropriate for the level of development of the Cariforum States; (23)

Urges the Commission to ensure that the provisions regarding enforcement of intellectual property rights will not be used to thwart legitimate competition from generic pharmaceutical suppliers and/or to prevent government purchasing entities from acquiring generic supplies;(25)

Highlights the need for development indicators to be used to measure expected economic and social outcomes (such as poverty reduction, better living standards and opening up of the economy) in implementing the EPA;(32)

We hope that the Commission and Council will take these recommendations seriously and pay attention to them in the process of implementation and monitoring of the EPA with the Cariforum region.

Relevant background documents