from:
http://allafrica.com/stories/
printable/200906190620.html
19 June 2009
Can you imagine what will happen in a football match in which
the almighty Brazil is allowed to field eleven of its world
renowned players while the opposing side fields only a player?
It sounds utterly absurd, doesn't it?
Simplistic as this analogy might seem, it does hold a lot when
one takes a critical look at the Economic Partnership Agreements
(EPAs) being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and 75
African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The EPAs are
aimed at fostering free trade between the two sides. This means
for instance that there would be substantial elimination of
tariff and non-tariff barriers within the free trade area
created under each of the EPAs.
The analogy holds even firmer when the EU as a group of 25
mainly highly industrialized countries, enters the agreement not
with say ECOWAS as a group but with individual countries within
the sub-region.
As students of the Adam Smith school of thought, the Europeans
believe that free trade maximizes social welfare. But social
welfare for whom? What if the trade in question is lopsided in
nature; such that one of the parties to the trade has far more
potential than the other? What if one party which is asking for
free market access has a far stronger industrial, financial and
other economic base? What if that same party is the number one
subsidizer of its agricultural sector in the world? "The EU is
the world's largest subsidizer of agriculture and thus causes
the greatest harm to the livelihoods of the world's poorest
people in developing countries," (Faizel Ismail, 2007).
On the other hand, African economies remain largely
underdeveloped while at the same time African governments are
being advised by their development partners not to subsidize
their already famished agricultural sector.
And then as usual, African countries have refused to come
together to negotiate the EPAs as a group. Deadlines have been
missed and the June 2009 deadline is about missed and it is
still not clear whether a deal would be reached between ECOWAS
and the EU any time soon. In the meantime, Ghana, seeing that
other ECOWAS countries including Nigeria are dragging their
feet, has gone ahead like Ivory Coast, to "initial" an Interim
Economic Partnership Agreement (IEPA) with the EU. Indeed, it is
said that the document presented to Ghana was nothing but a
translated copy of what the EU presented to the Ivory Coast.
Those who think it was not a big deal say the same rules apply
in international trade. But Mr. Tetteh Hormeku of the Third
World Network (TWN) would always argue that Ghana could have
negotiated on its own terms for a better deal. It was indeed, in
a hasty manner that Ghana, in December 2008 went ahead to
"initial" the IEPAs. A source says that not only did "our
development partners" keep reminding Ghana's negotiating team
that they were the number one benefactors of the country in
terms of loans and grants, but that they actually used a certain
$65 million grant facility as a bargaining chip.
What is interesting is that while ECOWAS is telling the EU it
cannot liberalise beyond 65%, Ghana has agreed in the IEPA to
eliminate tariffs on 80% of its imports from the EU over a 12
year period. "If this is the case (Patel, 2007), Ghanaians might
benefit from access to cheaper (imported) goods, but this
potential gain must also be seen in the context of the impact on
production and Ghana's broader long-term national development.
... for more, kindly go to the source
1. African Agenda archives (Edition 7.2 on Regional
integration):
