Ecowas Lawmakers Commend West African Epa Negotiators

3 September 2010
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Economic Community of West African States (Abuja)
press release

Accra - Ghana — West African legislators on Wednesday, 1st September 2010 cautioned against opening the region's market "too wide and hastily" to the European Union as a part of the concession for reaching a trade agreement between the two regions.

Both regions have since 2003 been negotiating a WTO-compliant Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) for the creation of a free trade area of the two regions that will define their trade and economic relations for the next 20 years. In a communiqué at the end of a two-day stakeholder sensitization programme in Accra, the Parliamentarians expressed concern about the potential impact of such opening on the "region's productive capacity."

The region's negotiators are offering to open 70 per cent of the region's market based on a liberalization schedule. The parliamentarians also urged regional leaders to "strongly defend their position" regarding the proposal by the EU for the scrapping of the Community levies imposed on imports into the region from third countries as they constitute "independent sources of financing regional integration."

The levies are used to fund the activities of ECOWAS and the sister West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA). Among the other recommendations were the "greater involvement of parliamentarians in the trade negotiation process", the conduct of regular stakeholder sensitization; the representation of the region's parliamentarians in a proposed Joint Parliamentary Committee to accompany the negotiations while the region's parliaments were urged to strengthen their technical committees.

Moreover, they stressed the need to address the development dimension of the EPA, ensure the harmonization of the positions of the two regions and evaluate the consequences of the financial and social crises in Europe as well as the financial, energy and food crisis in West Africa on the negotiations. They also expressed concern about the multiplicity of trade regimes in the region and underscored the need for an impact assessment of the agreements signed by Cote d'Ivoire on regional integration while efforts should be made for the speedy conclusion of the EPA negotiations in order to remove the stumbling block that the two agreements have posed to the region. The sensitization is part of a three-part programme for parliamentarians, private sector operators, representatives of civil society and the media in order to ensure citizen awareness and ownership of the process.

Read the original article on Ecowas.

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