Abuja - Nigeria — ECOWAS has expressed optimism about the prospect of successfully concluding the on-going negotiation of an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) that will define trade relations between the two Communities for the next 25 years.
"The negotiation of the EPA is not completely stalled as there have been some movements," the President of the Commission, Ambassador James Victor Gbeho, told Dr. Nicholas Westcott, the visiting Managing Director for Africa in the European External Action Service of the EU on Monday, 7th March 2011.
The negotiations have been stalled mainly over West Africa's demand for substantial EU contribution to finance an infrastructure development programme to improve the competitiveness of the region's economy, the EU's insistence on the scrapping of the ECOWAS 0.5 per cent Community Levy with which the regions sustains its activities and the level of opening of the regional market to imports from the EU.
The President said that West Africa's insistence on maintaining the EPA Development Programme (EPADP) was borne out of its desire to ensure that the outcome of the negotiations was consistent with its Vision 2020 that seeks to make the citizens the centre of development. He also defended the Community Levy as necessary as it constitutes the financial lifeblood of the organization, adding that there has been a greater appreciation of its necessity by the EU. Dr. Westcott reiterated the EU's well-established position that the EPA Agreement should have, as a central objective, the development of the West African region and agreed with President Gbeho on the need to give new and decisive impetus to the negotiations. The President briefed the visitor on the latest developments in crisis in Cote d'Ivoire where out-going President Laurent Gbagbo has refused to cede power to Alassane Ouattara, the winner of the November 2010 run-off presidential election.
Earlier, Dr. Westcott praised the quality of the partnership between ECOWAS and the EU and the strong leadership demonstrated by the region in the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire while expressing the hope for its swift resolution. Dr Westcott, a former British High Commissioner to Ghana and non-resident Ambassador to Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Niger and Togo, was appointed to his present position at the EU on 1st February 2011.
