David Cronin
15 February 2008
Brussels — Central African countries have committed themselves to finalising an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union by June this year.
During recent discussions in Douala, Cameroon, representatives of Central African governments and the EU's executive, the European Commission, approved a "roadmap" for further talks. Its main objective was that a comprehensive trade liberalisation deal should be reached within the next four months.
Brussels observers consider the plan as ambitious, with some casting doubt on whether it can be realised.
Little progress was achieved last year with the Central Africa region -- one of four groupings from Africa taking part in the EPA talks.
Of the eight Central African countries involved, only Cameroon reached an interim EPA - restricted to trade in goods - by the December 31 deadline set by the Commission.
San Bilal from the European Centre for Development Policy Management in the Netherlands said that this has resulted in much friction between Cameroon and the other governments in the regional grouping. The centre is an independent organisation that promotes EU-ACP relations.
These are the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe.
According to Bilal, Cameroon stands accused of "compromising regional solidarity".
And while the Commission has said that it wished to use trade as a means of bolstering regional integration in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc, Bilal argues that the EU's eleventh-hour moves to clinch deals with individual countries rather than regions as a whole may have had the opposite effect.
"Separate deals with individual states or groups of countries have effectively split ACP regions and have caused much tension between neighbours," he added. "Only the European Commission seems to have the audacity to claim otherwise."
Louis Michel, the European commissioner in charge of relations with ACP countries, refuted his argument. "It would be untrue to say that by signing individual EPAs with individual countries, the EU has destroyed efforts towards regional integration," said Michel.
"The commitment of the ACP and the EU to regional integration and to the creation of regional markets remains undiminished."
Because of the EPA signed by Cameroon, its bananas should be able to enter the EU's markets without restrictions. Banana exports from the country were worth 176 million euros in 2004-2006.
But the agreement also requires Cameroon to eliminate the tariffs it levies on 80 percent of imports from Europe. In January, Cameroon's tax authorities predicted that this will cause a "drastic fall" in customs revenue.
With the country's overall budget rising, it will be necessary to compensate for these losses by more effective fiscal policies in the domestic economy, according to the authorities.
In October last year, the Central African region urged the Commission to extend the deadline it had set for EPAs. At the time, the EU rejected that call. Nonetheless, it has decided to continue the EPA talks this year. It is hoping that it can thrash out far-reaching agreements - opening up trade in both goods and services - with all of the Central African countries.
Although this would include steps to make the agreement with Cameroon wider in scope, Peter Mandelson, the European commissioner for trade, said recently that he did not wish to renegotiate provisions contained in EPAs already reached.
That is despite how the EU itself has described most of the EPAs signed last year as "interim" or "stepping stone" agreements. The agreement with Cameroon is due to be formally notified to the World Trade Organisation in March.
Chris Stevens from the Overseas Development Institute took issue with Mandelson. "If the Commission is plugging on to try and get regional agreements, it must be happy to renegotiate some of the commitments," he told IPS. "Otherwise, it would logically not be possible to get regionally cohesive agreements." The institute is an independent think tank based in London.
Marc Maes from the Belgian anti-poverty group 11.11.11 said that messages from the Commission are conflicting.
"On the outside, the Commission is giving the impression of not being in a hurry and of not setting deadlines anymore," he said.
"But internally, it is telling regions not to leave things lying and to speed up the negotiations. It is trying to get the regions going again. But in Africa, there is much frustration and anger (with the Commission). And a lot of trust has gone."
Karin Ulmer from Aprodev, an alliance of Christian aid organisations, suggested that the negotiations with Central Africa will have to take into account how many countries in the region are in a weaker economic position than Cameroon. At 1,000 dollars, Cameroon's gross domestic product per capita is twice that of Chad and nearly ten times that of the DRC.
"Cameroon is the heavyweight and has the most important volume of trade with the EU (in the region)," said Ulmer. "Others didn't appreciate Cameroon going it alone."
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