News stories by Servaas van den Bosch

WINDHOEK, Jul 19 (IPS) - Southern Africa has to settle in for another round of negotiations after talks on Economic Partnership Agreements failed to produce results in June, bringing countries closer to losing access to the lucrative European Union market.

South Africa’s membership of the bloc of leading emerging economies and its unique position in Africa heralded the country’s role as a gateway into the African continent. However, trade experts question whether it can live up to this position as investors begin to increasingly look towards other African markets.

Over 100 years after the attempted extermination of Namibia’s indigenous men, women and children, 20 of the 300 skulls that had been stolen for racial research have finally returned home from Germany.

Botswana and Namibia are set to lose preferential access to the European Union, which wants African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to sign controversial free trade agreements within two years or face potential loss of market access to the 27-member EU bloc.

Climate change is increasingly playing a role in North-South trade, as carbon emissions are being used as an excuse to protect markets, with poorer countries likely to lose out.

European Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht made a pit-stop in Windhoek to appease concerns over a troublesome economic partnership agreement (EPA) ahead of the Africa-European Union summit in South Africa.

Southern Africa has moved forward with regional economic integration, but challenges remain, say trade experts.

While globally trade agreements are more and more about linking production chains between countries and continents, Africa remains locked in a struggle to overcome the colonial legacy of fragmentation, trade experts say.

It is not certain that an African free trade area will further regional integration or deepen the existing inequality between countries.

Weariness surrounds the negotiations on an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) regulating trade access between Southern Africa and the European Union (EU).