SOUTHERN AFRICA: A Region of Winners and Losers, Not Partners
As Southern Africa prepares itself for another year of economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations with the European Union, trade analysts say any deal should be about more than just liberalised trade.
A Dec 2010 deadline that the SADC-EPA configuration set itself has come and gone. With EPA negotiations set to continue in Lesotho in March, African negotiators take the long view. SADC stands for the Southern African Development Community; the SADC- EPA group consists of the members of the Southern African Custom Union (SACU) countries (South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland), plus neighbouring Angola and Mozambique.
'It is no longer necessary to negotiate an interim EPA,' Namibian trade minister Hage Geingob told IPS. 'Instead we will move straight ahead with negotiations for a final EPA but this includes agreeing on contentious clauses such as the ‘Singapore issues’. While the parties would like to reach an agreement this year, I don’t think that target will be met.'
The 'Singapore issues' were raised at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in 1996 in Singapore and include government procurement, investment, competition and trade facilitation.
Regarding ‘‘government procurement’’, the European Union (EU) wants African governments to extend the same opportunities to European companies as they do to local African companies. Similarly, investment is about exempting foreign companies from special requirements when they invest in African countries.
Furthermore, the EU argues that competitiveness of exported goods depends on the availability of competitive services in the financial, transport and telecommunications sector. Trade facilitation is the least contentious as it is about infrastructure and other aids to trade.
Countries of the South have since 1996 resisted the inclusion of the first three issues, which all relate to services, as they would detrimentally affect policy space. Countries in the region argue that the inclusion of these issues would not be necessary to comply with WTO rules, the ostensible reason for the replacement of the preferential trade arrangement under the Lomé Convention with EPAs.
Especially Namibia, under Geingob, has been vocal in its critique of the EPA, refusing to sign an interim EPA, where Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique did. When this led to a crisis in SACU last year, members agreed to again try and negotiate as a common bloc.
But differences between them continue to frustrate the process of regional economic integration. Botswana is keen on liberalising trade in services as soon as possible; Namibia and South Africa are eager to protect their economic policy space; and Lesotho and Swaziland are concerned about aid from the European Union (EU).
'Among the 12 or so contentious issues are the most favoured nation (MFN) clause, the definition of parties (DOP) and rules of origin (ROO). These can be resolved,' opines Jürgen Hoffmann of the Namibian Agricultural Trade Forum (ATF) consisting of technical experts in the negotiations.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service