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East Africa: EU Hails EAC Over Trade Deals
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The Monitor (Kampala)
23 April 2008
Posted to the web 22 April 2008
Peter Nyanzi
Brussels
The European Union has commended the East African Community for striking "a good deal,"following the initialling of an interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) at the end of last year.
While speaking at an African Carribean and Pacific (ACP) journalists training in Brussels, Belgium on April 14, Mr Peter Thompson, the director for development and EPAs, said the EPA was "a great opportunity" for the region to build larger markets.
The five countries of the EAC initialled an interim EPA in November last year, well ahead of the December 31 and paving way for a final deal by mid next year.
"We believe there is a good deal with the EAC," he said.
It had been decided several years earlier that the 16 Eastern and Southern African (ESA) countries, would negotiate the EPA with the EU as one region, the five EAC partner States of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania Burundi, and Rwanda, resolved to do it as one entity, a move that the EU initially objected to but later accepted because the ESA was apparently "moving too slowly to beat the December 31 deadline," according to an official.
The EAC wanted to ensure that there was no disruption in trade between the region and the EU with the looming expiration of the Cotonou trade regime, which was incompatible with the World Trade Organisation regulations.
Mr Thompson said the EAC was most helped by the fact that it is already operating under a customs union, which he said puts it ahead of many of its ACP counterparts. He saluted Tanzania for pulling out of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to negotiate in the EAC region, saying "it made more sense."
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The officials said with a functioning customs union, the region is on a good footing, having achieved a milestone that took the EU region many tortuous years of negotiations to reach.
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