ACP Legal Experts Meeting on the legal and institutional implications of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)

Darlan Martí, Programme Officer, South Centre participated in the ACP Legal Experts Meeting on the legal and institutional implications of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) held in Brussels on 10-11 October 2007.

The meeting was attended by representatives of each of the 6 ACP EPA regions (CARIFORUM, PIFS, SADC, CEMAC, COMESA and EAC, UEMOA, ECOWAS and Mauritania). In addition, permanent representatives of ACP missions in Brussels attended the meeting, as well as representatives from African Union, ECDPM, OIF, South Centre, and UNCTAD.

Demystifying Trade in Services: A Strategic Guide for ACP EPA Negotiators

Trade in services has been portrayed as one of the complicated areas in the EPA negotiations. As ACP countries engage in the EPA services negotiations, understanding the rules, principles and concepts that govern multilateral trade, and economic integration Agreements in services, becomes central to their effective participation. This Fact Sheet no. 5 prepared by Trade for Development Programme of the South Centre explains, in a simple manner, the above-mentioned rules, principles, and concepts. It is hoped that this guide will be a useful contribution to the negotiators, in securing an outcome that is in line with ACP development objectives.

Download the Fact Sheet from http://www.southcentre.org/publications/AnalyticalNotes/Other/2007Oct_EPA_Fact_Sheet_No5.pdf

South Centre participates in Roundtable on "Technical Analysis of Development Implications of Draft EPA Provisions"

Luisa Rodriguez, Trade for Development Programme, made a presentation at the Roundtable entitled “What’s on the table for development? A Technical analysis of development implications of draft EPA provisions”, held in Brussels on 13 September 2007.

The presentation made by Luisa Rodriguez assessed the content of the EPA texts on the basis of existing vulnerabilities of the agriculture sector in ACP countries. These vulnerabilities include: supply side constraints; dependency on a limited number of commodities, markets and preferential market access; increased frequency and extent of import surges. She made specific recommendations concerning: the process leading to regional selection of Sensitive Products, technical and financial needs to reinforce and develop ACP countries’ capacities with regards to health and sanitary standards and an agricultural safeguard mechanism.

This event was jointly organized by APRODEV and Christian Aid to help ACP and EU officials to better understand the development implications of EPA texts, in order to enable them to make a knowledgeable assessment of whether these texts will deliver the development ambitions of Cotonou or what needs to change before decisions on signing are made in December. Representatives of the EU member states, ACP representatives in Brussels and civil society organizations and think tanks participated in this event.

Agriculture Special Safeguards in the context of EPAs

"WTO provisions do not prevent the ACP countries and the EU from including adequate agriculture safeguards in the EPAs" says Luisa Bernal, Head of Trade for Development Programme (TDP), South Centre in her paper on Agriculture Special Safeguards in the context of EPAs. She adds that given the experience of the ACP countries, particularly the African countries with import surges, it will be important that adequate instruments are provided to them to address this phenomenon in the context of the EPA agreements.

Ms Bernal presented this paper in the session on "Market access and Development challenges in EPAs/WTO Doha Negotiations" at the International Conference on “Commodities, Rules of Origin, Development and Legal Dimensions of the European Union-Africa Economic Partnership Debates: The Nexus between African Issues of Concern in EPAs and the WTO Doha Development Agenda” in Upssala, Sweden on 7-8 September 2007.

The paper reviews the legal aspects related to the WTO compatibility of agriculture safeguards provisions applied between parties to a regional trade agreements, such as the proposed EPAs. It also reviews the policy debates in relation to the incidence of import surges in developing countries which has taken place in the WTO in the context of the Doha round.

The Conference was organized by The Nordic Africa Institute and focused on policy issues related to the negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements currently under negotiations between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the European Union. Academics and development practitioners participated in the conference.

Legal and Development Implications of Inclusion of Services in the EPAs

South Centre has issued a Policy Brief " WHY INCLUSION OF SERVICES IN THE EPAs IS PROBLEMATIC" which analyses legal and development implications for Eastern and Southern African (ESA) countries in negotiating trade in services under the EPAs. The outcome of Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations will change a decades-old reciprocal trading regime between the European Union and African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) countries. Read the publication online at:
http://www.southcentre.org/info/policybrief/10Inclusion%20_of_Services_in_EPAS.pdf

It recommends that ESA countries should move really slowly and cautiously on services liberalization with the EU. There is absolute merit in strengthening cooperation, along the lines of what the Lomé Conventions used to contain so that real capacity can be built to provide domestically, to provide for export, to regulate, and so that it is mutually advantageous. As such, ESA countries may want to consider strengthening cooperation as an option to a trade Agreement.

The Policy Brief concludes that ESA countries should focus on developing domestic capacity to provide universal access to basic services, develop export capacity in niche sectors, design and improve regulatory capacity and mainstream intra-regional trade.

EPA negotiations in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA): Way Forward for Market Access negotiations

Market access, both for agricultural and for industrial products, is the core of the EPA agenda and in that sense is at the front stage of current negotiating efforts. In fact, one of the topmost motivations for concluding an EPA, from the viewpoint of ACP governments, is to lock Cotonou preferential conditions of market access into a new trade arrangement, reports back Darlan Marti, Expert on Trade in Industrial Goods in South Centre, from the round table dialogue on "EPA market access negotiations in Eastern and Southern Africa: what options for the way forward?" organized in Mauritius on 3 August 2007.

The round table was organized by South Centre in the margins of the 12th Regional Negotiating Forum of the EPA ESA region.

The EPAs provide a WTO-compatible framework, in the form of a reciprocal Free Trade Agreement, which guarantees the continuation of exports from ACP countries to the European Union under preferential conditions. For this reason, the conclusion of the market access aspect of EPAs is a sine qua non precondition to the finalization of EPAs.

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