Trade Negotiations Insights • Volume 7 • Number 5 • June 2008
Glass half empty or half full? The move towards a comprehensive EPA
European Union member states came together in May to agree to a series of so-called conclusions on the Economic Partnership Agreements with the ACP. During what is supposed to be the last General Affairs and External Relations Council before the interim EPAs are signed, ministers reconfirmed their desire to finalise comprehensive regional EPAs while getting the interim agreements signed and notified to the WTO as soon as possible.2 EU trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson subsequently said he expects to begin this process for the seven interim agreements “after the summer,” a timeframe that he deems “will stretch WTO patience.”3
A target on the move
Slipping deadlines are nothing new in the EPA process, as in any trade negotiation. It reflects the difficulties, technical and administrative, in finalising the interim agreements (so-called ‘legal scrubbing’ in negotiators’ jargon) to be signed, hurdles made all the higher given that many of the agreements were concluded in haste. It probably also reflects some uneasiness by certain African countries regarding the content of these interim agreements. The Caribbean, the only region to have concluded a full-EPA, is due to sign in July. For the rest, negotiations towards a full EPA continue at the technical level. While on the surface regions appear to be making good progress, several factors could prevent a smooth and speedy conclusion of comprehensive EPAs.
To start with, there seems to be a difference between the technical discussions, which have restarted and seem to be going in the right direction, and the political mood, which still seems to be lacking leadership and a sense of direction. As many decisions will be political in nature there is a need to avoid the pre-2008 mistake of leaving many contentious issues to the end of negotiations and to rely solely on the technical experts. African countries need ministers to make effective political decisions on what products to liberalise and by how much, as well as choosing which reforms and accompanying measures are necessary.
Another concern is the uneasiness surrounding the signing and possible ratification of interim agreements, which are by definition incomplete. These contain provisions that still raise serious concerns, notably in Africa, making the negotiations towards a full EPA even more challenging. Difficult enough at the country level this becomes even more problematic when trying to find coordination and cohesion at the regional level. Moreover, what does this mean for the ACP as a whole? The Caribbean and the Pacific appear to have broken away while the African regions are trying to regroup.
Council conclusions: approaching the finish line?
So what did the Council conclusions reveal about the state of play for the interim EPAs? First and foremost it appears that EU member states are working hard to accommodate many of the ACP concerns in a final comprehensive EPA. The Europeans acknowledged the ACP desire for a flexible and pragmatic approach towards adjusting individual or sub-regional interim agreements, taking account of different needs and various levels of development. While this did not stretch to any specific readiness to renegotiate the interim agreements before official signature, the Council agreed that ACP countries and regions could draw, if appropriate, on provisions agreed by others in their EPA negotiations.
There was a distinct insistence that this flexible and pragmatic approach should be used to secure deals that support regional integration (the phrase was repeated no less than twelve times in the short five page document). However, this key objective does not currently seem to translate into reality. Some of the strongest ACP disquiet stems from the regional dis-integration which has accompanied the EPA process: traditional blocs have splintered turning friend into foe.
The Council also pledged to work closely with the ACP to provide specific EU regional Aid for Trade (AfT) packages. These would cover all six categories of AfT, including appropriate EPA accompanying measures, primarily designed to enhance productive capacity. The effective establishment and delivery of such AfT packages, which address both regional and national needs, will be key in helping trade, regional integration and EPAs in particular to deliver on their development promises.
Finally, EU member states stressed the importance of setting up comprehensive EPA institutions, notably to monitor the development of EPA implementation and its subsequent impact on trade. An immediate challenge facing the creation of these EPA institutions, which should reflect regional specificities, will be to design and operate them in a way that ensures synergies with the existing EUACP institutions established under the Cotonou Agreement.
External pressure
At the same time as technical EPA talks are taking off, momentum in the WTO has increased with the release in May of another set of blueprints for a possible Doha deal. Some ACP countries have suggested waiting to see what happens at the multilateral level before making new commitments, notably on services, in the context of a full EPA. Questions of strategy aside, this increased activity in Geneva must be putting strains on ACP resources to pick up the pace and meet the challenge of negotiating in both arenas.
Filling the glass
ACP and EU ministers are now set to meet in a joint Council meeting in Addis Ababa on June 8-13. Moreover, Nicolas Sarkozy, who takes over his six-month stint as EU Council President at the beginning of July, has assigned a member of the French Parliament, Christiane Taubira, to assess EPAs and report back to him on June 15. Whether they can hammer out concrete solutions, and whether the Commission would take any such recommendations into account on the long and winding road to signature, remains to be seen.
1 Dr Sanoussi Bilal is the Programme Coordinator of ECDPM’s programme on ACP-EU Economic and Trade Cooperation and the editor of TNI. Victoria Hanson is the editor of TNI at ICTSD.
2 To read the full Council conclusions on EPAs see: www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/ pressData/en/gena/100687.pdf
3 From Commissioner Peter Mandelson’s address to the Committee on International Trade (INTA) of the European Parliament, focusing on Doha and EPAs, May 27 2008. www.ec.europa.eu/trade