Europe is playing hardball in its trade negotiations with small Pacific countries and refusing to accept their legitimate development concerns.
Europe is playing hardball in its trade negotiations with small Pacific countries and refusing to accept their legitimate development concerns.
In a report released today, Slamming the Door on Development: Analysis of the EU’s Response to the Pacific’s EPA Negotiating Proposals, international agency Oxfam says that while the European Union (EU) says it is committed to using trade to promote development, its behaviour suggests otherwise. Instead it is using the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) to impose rapid liberalisation and anti-development conditions on countries in the Pacific.
“Despite the official rhetoric of ‘partnerships’ and ‘development,’ behind the scenes the European Commission has rejected almost all of the Pacific’s proposals,” said Barry Coates, Executive Director of Oxfam New Zealand. “This far-reaching trade deal is likely to result in the loss of jobs and revenue. The Pacific’s request for a development-friendly deal deserves a better hearing than the unforgiving rejection they have received,” he added.
A large number of Pacific civil society organisations have previously raised concerns over the EU’s position on EPA negotiations. A strong communiqué from the trade capacity building forum in June was endorsed by the Pacific Civil Society Forum meeting held in Nadi in October.
Slamming the Door on Development looks at a three-page leaked letter from the European Commission’s Deputy Director-General for Trade and its Director-General for Development responding to a comprehensive draft text submitted in July 2006 by Pacific governments negotiating an EPA with the EU. Leaked to the Financial Times, the letter rejects most of the proposals suggested by Pacific governments to integrate development considerations and instead reveals that the EU are pushing hard for the Pacific to accept rapid trade liberalisation across a wide range of goods, services and investment rules.
“The Pacific text made proposals that would have linked specific commitments under the EPA to additional EU funding to offset projected revenue losses and to allow Pacific countries to make the most of any new opportunities afforded by those commitments,” said Coates.
The EU response on funding was unequivocal: “As you know, this is not acceptable to us. We have jointly spent considerable time during our meetings in the past clarifying this point.”
The letter went on to brush off Pacific proposals on fisheries, labour mobility, investment, and services, before urging the Pacific to “redouble their efforts to accelerate the process of convergence towards a common ‘landing zone.’”
Coates concluded: “The leaked letter from European Commission officials to the Pacific’s lead trade negotiator exposes the trade liberalisation reality behind the EU’s development rhetoric. A new approach to the negotiations is urgently needed. The Pacific needs to call for alternatives to an EPA, as guaranteed under the Cotonou Partnership Agreement.”
The European Commission, which is negotiating the EPA on behalf of the EU, is seeking to conclude EPAs by December 2007 with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of former European colonies. The EPA is designed to replace the Lomé preferential trade regime that has been deemed incompatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
The report comes one year on from the failure of WTO talks in Hong Kong to conclude a development round of trade reforms. In those negotiations, tthe EU was widely blamed for contributing to the stalemate at the WTO by refusing to concede access to its markets.
The leaked letter is available at http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=6633&var_mode=recalcul