John Oyuke
25 June 2005
Nairobi — Trade and Industry Mukhisa Kituyi arrives in Britain this weekend to press the European Union (EU) member states to stop forcing their free trade policies on Africa.
The minister is expected to ask UK to use its presidency of the EU to persuade the union members to rethink the free trade plans that many African countries have fear are a threat to millions of farmers' livelihoods.
Kituyi will set out his concerns at a conference to be held on June 27, 2005 and organized by a leading fair trade charity, Traidcraft.
He will also hold talks with UK Trade Secretary Alan Johnson and International Development Secretary Hilary Benn.
His mission comes at amidst growing concern in Africa over EU's Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson plan to seek to exploit his close ties with British Premier Tony Blair to persuade him to revise UK's stand on the deals.
The British government issued a statement early this year questioning the speed and level at which African states should open their markets to products from EU countries under the proposed Economic Partnership Agreements (Epas).
Britain takes over the EU presidency from Luxembourg on July 1, 2005 and chairs the G8 summit at Gleneagles in Scotland from July 6 to 8, with Africa being a key issue on the agenda.
Kituyi said though Kenya and other African countries welcomed the recom-mendation from the Commission on Africa and the UK's commitment not to press free trade plans on Africa, they were looking for real changes in Epas negotiations.
He said the challenge for Britain was to stand firm in its position and use EU presidency to ensure the rhetoric translates into real changes on Epas and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) policy.
'If the European leaders want to make poverty history, they must allow Africa to implement pro-poor trade policies,' the statement quoted Kituyi, who is currently in the US, as saying.
He said Kenya was at one time forced to impose tariffs when EU imports of dairy products, including milk powder, threatened 600,000 small-scale local farmers.
African countries, he added, were concerned that if they reject the Epas free trade plans without reasonably negotiated positions, EU might withdraw aid and deny them access to its markets.
The UK conference follows the African Union's meeting earlier this month in Cairo, Egypt, where trade ministers called on the EU to drop new issues such as investment, competition and procurement from negotiations.
Nathan Irumba, Uganda's former Ambassador to the WTO and one of the speakers at the conference, told EU member states to accept the fact that there was huge opposition to Epas in Africa.
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