Nairobi — Kenya will not sign a new trade agreement with the European Union (EU) next month without the proposed 25-year transition period.

Trade and Industry minister, Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, also wants the EU to assure exporters to the world's largest trading block that trade will not be disrupted with or without the proposed trade agreement.

The EU is the second largest export market after Comesa, but the largest export market for agricultural products mainly horticulture, coffee and tea.

Kituyi said the country and 15 others in the East and Southern Africa negotiating (ESA) group want market protection for 25 years before they can allow duty free imports from the European Union.

"We are waiting for political solidarity from the EU that there would not be any trade disruption come January as long as we agree on the key pillars of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiations," said Kituyi when he opened a three -day trade seminar funded by the Japanese Government in Nairobi.

Kituyi, who leads a group of Trade ministers from the ESA group to meet the EU commissioners in Brussels, next week, accused the EU of hardening positions and pushing its own market access agenda during the negotiations.

He said ESA countries, just like the other five negotiating groups in the African Caribbean and Pacific countries, will not be rushed to sign an unfair agreement.

Kituyi was early this year appointed by the EU to spearhead the ESA group negotiations and his tough stand now casts doubt on whether a deal will be signed in December.

He dismissed claims that the EU had prepared an arrangement within the EPAs context to safeguard market access of the developing countries that are excluded from the Everything-But-Arms (EBA) initiative enjoyed by all poor countries.

In the ESA group, only Kenya, Mauritius, Seychelles and Zimbabwe are developing countries and stand to lose preferential market access to the EU that they have enjoyed since 1976. The others qualify for EBA.

EU maintains that the new trade pact must be signed next month otherwise the affected countries will trade under the less lucrative generalised system of preferences (GSP).

However, Kituyi says the argument cannot be used to force the ACP countries to sign a lopsided agreement which does not conform to development aspirations.