How Europe should bring development into its trade deals with African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries
Europe is negotiating new trade deals with African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries. A true partnership in trade could radically transform the lives of one-third of all people living in poverty, providing farmers and small businesses with sustainable incomes and workers with decent jobs. But Europe is choosing power politics over partnership. Through analysis of the goods, services, investment, and intellectual property chapters of texts concluded last year, this paper draws attention to aspects of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that put future economic development at risk and puts forward positive policy prescriptions.
Partnership or Power Play? How Europe should bring development into its trade deals with African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries
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Summary
Six years ago trade talks began between the European Union (EU) and 76 African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries. By the negotiating deadline of December 2007, fewer than half the ACP countries had ‘initialled’ any form of deal with Europe. The deals promised to deliver development, but they fail to meet the development test. As trade ministers from across the ACP stated in December 2007, the ‘European Union’s mercantilist interests have taken precedence over the ACP’s developmental and regional integration interests’.
To date, deals have only been initialled: they are not legally binding agreements. This means change is possible: new, fairer deals can and should be created.
Through analysis of the goods, services, investment, and intellectual property chapters of texts concluded last year, this paper draws attention to aspects of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that put future economic development at risk. It subjects them to the kind of development test that should have guided negotiations from the beginning, and puts forward positive policy prescriptions. Each section uses case studies from the history of the integration of ACP countries into the global economy to draw lessons from both the past and the present.
Oxfam International calls for:
- Thorough and comprehensive independent evaluations and impact assessments of what has been initialled, before any deal is signed and committed into law;
- Vigorous engagement by parliaments across Europe and the ACP and full scrutiny of the deals;
- The EU to offer ACP countries long-term options for trade in goods that would include:
- (i) Adapting its unilateral preference schemes so they further open European markets and are made permanent, ensuring no ACP country is left worse off if it does not conclude a free trade agreement;
- (ii) Renegotiation of any aspect of the initialled EPAs and commitment to reduce the deals to the minimum needed for WTO compliance;
- ACP countries to take stock within their regional blocs and make a strategic decision on which route they want to pursue, fully consulting all affected parties, including workers, producers, and businesses;
- The EU to agree complete flexibility in approaching negotiations on services, investment, technology transfer, and other trade-related areas, with ACP countries taking the lead in setting the pace and content of negotiations;
- The EU to provide additional, binding, predictable, and swiftly disbursed support to tackle infrastructure and competitiveness constraints in ACP countries.
