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Over the past month, EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton has travelled from London to South Africa, speaking about flexibility and offering optimism for the EPA negotiations. While her rhetoric has provided hope, many negotiators are wondering how long it will take to transform discourse into reality.
On the ground, stakeholders, such as those in Central Africa where EPA talks have once again slowed, are longing for her words to turn into action. Views on why talks have winded down vary drastically between the European Commission and some Central African stakeholders; in this issue, TNI covers both perspectives.
This edition also continues the discussion provoked by TNI’s February interview with Ashton. In their article, “The EU’s cock-eyed approach to trade and governance,” Christina Weller and Karin Ulmer challenge some of the claims and methods the European Union has made with regards to the EPA negotiations, trade, and governance.
In another case of symbolic hope, in late January, the United State’s first African American president was inaugurated into office. Drawing from the outpouring of support for President Barak Obama coming from Africa, TNI set out to explore what the continent can most likely expect from an Obama administration, particularly as concerns trade and development.
Now in Africa, however, attention has shifted from Obama to the African Union’s recent decision to change from a Commission to an “Authority.” In our lead article for this edition, two African experts consider whether this begins the process of re-aligning the balance of power between member states and the AU, and if so, what that implies.
Continuing our African coverage, Francis Mangeni’s contribution outlines how EU assistance for services in East Africa can help the region reach its Millennium Development Goals. On a more general note, Peter Lunenborg takes up the issue of General Exceptions in the EPAs and encourages developing countries to bring commodities back to the forefront in the WTO agenda.
Finally, an editorial correction: in our February issue of TNI, we went to press with a misprint in Josanne Leonard’s entitled, “As EPA ink dries.” In the section on “Co-production agreements” the omission in the Jamaica-UK agreement was not the audio-visuals sector as written, but multimedia platforms.
As always, comments are welcomed and can be addressed to czaino@ictsd.ch.
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