Worldwide mobilization against unfair trade deals between Europe and Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific

They will be calling on Germany, as the current holder of the EU Presidency, to use its influence to make sure the so-called Economic Partnership Agreements, due to be completed this year, do not go ahead in their current form.

 

The actions, taking place in more than twenty international cities, including London, Berlin, Dakar, and Bridgetown, will vary from handovers of symbolic keys and padlocks accompanied with the message, “Europe Don’t Lock Africa into Poverty” to “Wake Up” stunts where campaigners pose in beds to suggest that Europe is oblivious to the concerns of developing countries.

 

The groups argue that free trade deals along the lines proposed by Europe would destroy livelihoods and the environment and undermine future economic growth and regional integration.

 

Gyekye Tanoh, TWN-Africa said: “We are mobilizing because these deals threaten to undermine poverty reduction and destroy livelihoods across Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Europe is being inflexible and insisting on the deadline, but the proposed agreements will not boost development – in many cases they will make people poorer.”

 

Luis Morago, of Oxfam International in Brussels said: “Europe is demanding that poor countries radically open their markets and make major concessions on new issues such as investment, which have been rejected by developing countries at the WTO. This would destroy livelihoods, undermine future economic growth, and deprive countries of the space to regulate to protect people and the environment.”

 

Shantal Munro-Knight of the Caribbean Policy Development Center in Barbados said: “Europe is pushing conditions that will expose the poorest and most vulnerable people to economic shocks, and kick out the ladder of development from under fledgling industries. This is not the way to help us out of poverty.”

 

The groups say that any trade deal between Europe and the ACP should be non-reciprocal and provide at least equivalent to existing market access. It should exclude commitments on services, investment or other trade-related issues and have simplified rules of origin.

 

The deadline of end 2007 should not be enforced, if countries are not ready to sign. The EU must commit to continue existing trade preferences until alternative arrangements are put in place and also guarantee extra aid to help with adjustment costs, new infrastructure, and other trade related investments.