Government must place its proposal on EPA on the table

Story: Boahene Asamoah

THE Head of Programmes at the Third World Network (TWN), a civil society organisation, Mr Tetteh Hormeko, has called on the government to come clean on its preferred option on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) on the on-going negotiations with the European Commission (EC).
He said it was not enough for the government to state that it would not sign the agreement and that the government ought to put on the negotiating table its proposals of the revised Generalised System of Preferences, also known as GSP+.
West African Ministers meeting on October 5, 2007 in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire stated that they would not be able to meet the December 31, 2007 deadline for the signing of the new trade agreement with the European Commission (EC).
The EPAs are reciprocal trade agreements between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries to replace the trade chapters of the Cotonou Agreement when the non-reciprocal preferential trade agreement expires next year.
Addressing a press conference on the present situation of the EPAs, Mr Homerku, stated that while the EC had made a two-stage proposal, which he described as a modified version of the EPAs, members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries had not presented any option of their choice to its negotiating counterpart.
He said the GSP+ could also guarantee a World Trade Organisation (WTO) compatible preferential and non-reciprocal trade between the EU and ACP countries, in spite of claims that ACP countries would not be able to access the EU market if they failed to sign the EPAs by the end of the year.
Mr Homerku expressed worry that while the EU had ignored suggestions for the current trade waiver with the ACP countries to be extended, its had nonetheless presented what he termed “a front-loaded EPAs” which it expected African countries to sign up to by the end of November this year.
He said the two-stage proposal was “totally unacceptable to civil society groups,” adding that it amounted to signing the EPAs.
Mr Homerku explained that under the two-stage proposal, the EC was urging all ACP countries to sign the agreement that allowed for the full liberalisation of the goods or products sector, while the ACP committed itself to signing the two remaining agreements which were services and intellectual property rights at a later date.
He said the issues civil society groups raised in the EPAs, such as undermining the competitiveness of African products, the loss of jobs and taxes, specific goods to be liberalised and sensitive products, had still not been resolved, while the EC was pushing for a two-stage proposal.
Mr Homerku stated that the EC was exerting undue pressure on individual countries as well as other regional blocs to sign the EPAs and that there was the need for all ACP countries to present their options.
ACP countries are now on the verge of negotiating new regional trade agreements — called Economic Partnership Agreements — with the European Union (EU) which will diverge radically from past trading relationships.