Experts in west Africa continue to express worries about the impact of a future EC-west Africa EPA. In a conference organised in Bamako in December 2009 to review a study entitled ‘the impact of economic partnership agreements (EPAs)on the Malian economy: a quantifiable general equilibrium analysis’, participants argued that the impending EPA will be a threat to west African economies. Government officials explained that signing an EPA in its current form would lead to a loss of about 32% of the customs revenue of Mali and that of other west African countries. In addition, it was argued that the EPA provisions could adversely affect many parts of agricultural sector, most notably the poultry sector. In a similar vein, parliamentarians in the Gambia have raised concerns about dwindling local poultry production due to continuous import of subsidised EU poultry-meat. Against this background, the Gambian Parliament called on 21 December 2009 for west African countries to continue to resist pressure to sign bilateral IEPAs and to maintain a common regional approach.
At the end of the December Bamako conference, there was a common consensus that a realistic EPA for west Africa should include a tariff elimination offer which covered a maximum of 60% of current west African imports from the EU, with the phasing out of tariffs to be carried out over 25 years. This continues to be a source of tension in the negotiations, with the EC continuing to look for a tariff elimination offer encompassing around 80% of current EU exports to west Africa. As a result of this situation, various deadlines in 2009 for concluding the negotiations were missed, and the ECOWAS-EC meeting scheduled for 7-11 December in Benin was postponed.
Concerns over the impact of EU safety precautions related to good agricultural practice (SPa) and food safety regulations also continue to overhang the negotiations. On other thorny issues, the west Africans have requested some specifications on EU policies, but the EU remains silent on the reform of its sectoral policies concerning competitive as well as non-tariff products. The west African group is also concerned about the EU’s lack of clarification of its EPA market access policies on sanitary and phytosanitary measures and other technical barriers to trade.
There is also disagreement over the development assistance commitments to be linked to the conclusion of the IEPA, aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of local productive sectors in west Africa. The EC continues to insist that there is no mechanism at the EU level other than the EDF that can finance EPA-related adjustment needs. All of these issues raise questions about the possibility of concluding a regional economic partnership agreement in 2010.
Abijan.net (Côte d’Ivoire), 14 December 2009
http://news.abidjan.net/article/?n=349792
L'indicateur Renouveau (Mali), 6 January 2010
http://www.maliweb.net/category.php?NID=55029
Agence de Presse Africaine (Gambia), 22 December 2009
http://www.apanews.net/public/spip.php?article114215
La Gazette (Senegal), 17 November 2009
http://www.lagazette.sn/spip.php?article964
Although Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire already initialled bilateral IEPAs at the end of 2007, efforts continue to conclude a region-wide agreement. In mid-2009, both parties agreed to take a two-stage approach by signing an agreement on market access, development cooperation and certain trade-related issues (SPS issues, non-tariff barriers and rules of origin) by late October, while continuing negotiations on other subjects, such as services, into 2010. Meanwhile, west Africa negotiators have requested a further postponement of the services negotiations. While prospects for an agreement remain gloomy, there are indications from the EC that they may be willing to delay the signing of the EPA with the west African region until 2011. This would allow time to address the range of outstanding issues.
We also find that the concerns of the west African governments over the fiscal implications of the proposed EPA could well be addressed within the framework of the new EC initiative in support of tax reform in developing countries that was launched by the then development commissioner, Karel De Gucht, in December 2009. Mr De Gucht is Trade Commissioner-designate, with the EP approval vote on the whole Commission due to take place on 9 February.
However concerns also remain in west Africa over an EPA process that fails to safeguard the west African regional integration processes. This essentially requires finding a solution which within a single framework can maintain the rights of LDCs to special and differential treatment while accommodating the needs of the three non-LDCs, Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
West African negotiators are also anxious to pin down EC commitments on the accompanying development assistance programme due to be established alongside the EPA, with the aim here to secure legally binding commitments. Concerns also remain that any ‘non-execution’ clause, under which the EU could suspend EPA benefits, should be limited to non-performance in the sphere of trade-related commitments.
Most fundamentally, west African governments need to address outstanding issues related to their common external trade tariff and the structure of the final regional offer that will be tabled with the EU. This has been handicapped by the extensive nature of the exclusion list arising from the differing sensitivities of the economies in this regional group. In this respect, the extensive use of tariff-rate quotas by the EU in trade agreements with third countries could offer one means of addressing west African sensitivities, while expanding the product coverage of the basic EPA agreement. Under such arrangements, tariff concessions would be made in the agreement on a wider range of products including certain sensitive products (thus expanding the percentage of total trade covered by the agreement), but with these sensitive products being covered by TRQ arrangements, thereby regulating access to west African markets and preventing import surges.