It has become a slogan that the current Doha sequence of world trade talks is a “development round” to help poor countries. But as multilateral talks under the World Trade Organization grind on, the European Union has come under fire over separate bilateral trade deals it is seeking with those nations, reports the World Bank press review Friday .
Previous accords between the EU and the 78-strong group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations gave such countries special access to European markets while retaining high import barriers themselves.
But now, some campaigners, experts and poor country officials complain that in its proposed new deals, known as Economic Partnership Agreements, the EU is asking those nations for radical and excessive liberalization as the price for special access to developed-country markets.
Action Aid, the UK-based non-governmental organization, has released a report arguing that the proposed Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which divide the ACP nations into six regional groupings, “constitute a major threat to poverty reduction and development”.
By asking for reciprocal liberalization, the agreements will allow fragile nascent industries in Africa, particularly agribusiness, to be swamped by exports from subsidized European farmers, Action Aid argues.
Moreover, the EU wants the deals to include peripheral issues, particularly rules to govern foreign investment and competition policy, which were withdrawn from WTO talks last year at the behest of developing countries.
Now, critics charge, the EU is exploiting its superior bilateral bargaining power to sneak them back into EPAs. – It was silly for them to bundle these issues into the WTO and would be equally wrong to put them in here, says Adrian Hewitt of the Overseas Development Institute in London.
But Hewitt notes that ACP countries bargaining power is also weak, with many locked into an unhealthy post-colonial dependence on EU nations for aid and market access.
Current arrangements for that market access will expire by 2008, after which half the ACP nations will retain duty-free access to EU markets even if they do not sign new EPAs. But others, such as Ghana and Kenya, face a stark choice of signing new agreements or losing their special access.
The EU, concerned that privileged bilateral trade could flout its WTO obligations, denies nefarious (skændige) motives. – These EPAs are designed to reinforce regional integration, encouraging countries to trade among themselves and reinforce their attractiveness to investors, says a spokesperson for EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson.
She adds that the EUs trade agreements with ACP countries will take account of the need to let poor and vulnerable countries liberalize their trade slowly. For the moment, however, some of those countries are reserving judgment.
Jaya Krishna Cuttaree, the Mauritian trade minister, says the EUs commitment to gradual trade liberalization remains to be seen. The devil will be in the detail of the negotiations. That detail will be scrutinized by those who fear that poor countries are being asked to do too much in return for special access to EU markets.
The Wall Street Journal also reports that Europes plan to slash its much-criticized farm supports is running into some unlikely opposition: developing nations that fear their delicate economies could be crushed in the continents rush toward more-open markets.
The opposition is an uncomfortable twist for the European Union, which has been under pressure from developing countries for decades to reduce farm supports that distort world markets. It underscores how the developing world is fragmenting into competing interests that can not be addressed with one-size-fits-all trade policies – an increasing challenge for negotiators trying to shape global trade deals.
Banana, sugar and rice growers, mostly poor nations of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, say eliminating EU quotas and slashing price supports will cost many of them their favored access to the 25-nation bloc, jeopardizing the already-meager livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
