Read Baroness Ashton's reply here.
We welcome the fact that Baroness Ashton has responded to the concerns of our supporters, however we would point out where we differ from the approach outlined in her letter:
Involving ordinary people
While there have been a number of civil society dialogues over the years of EPA negotiations, there has been a widespread perception among EU and Africa, Carribbean and Pacific (ACP) civil society that the civil society views expressed in these dialogues have been largely sidelined in favour of a business as usual approach on the part of the Commission. Lamentably, the concerns of ACP governments themselves also have often been marginalised in these negotiations, as reflected in numerous ACP public statements to this effect.
In contrast, Baroness Ashton's greater openness to genuine dialogue has been warmly welcomed – but it is critical that listening translates into action, in the form of a new approach to the agreements, notably a genuine commitment to re-negotiate contentious issues unconditionally.
EPAs as tools for development
Having closely followed the EPA negotiations since they commenced, Traidcraft and our ACP partners are fully conversant with the development and regional-integration objectives for EPAs, as laid out in the Cotonou Agreement. Our concerns – and those of many ACP governments – relate to the EPA texts before us, which our analysis suggests would actively undermine those very objectives.
The imapct of EPAs on poorer countries
While the liberalisation of goods trade in Interim-EPAs and the Caribbean EPA comes with transition periods and some exemptions from liberalisation, these flexibilities are limited – and countries have therefore been forced to make tough choices between protecting their vulnerable agricultural sectors or preserving the scope to support new industries in the future. When European industries face troubled times, huge resources can be mobilised at short-notice to support them into recovery – since ACP countries can rarely afford such resource-intensive measures, the flexibility to use tariffs to support domestic sectors is the most practical tool they have at their disposal, yet EPAs would largely remove this valuable instrument.
In addition to this fundamental problem, the I-EPAs come with restrictions on a range of other policy instruments that ACP countries have effectively used to promote food security and value-addition, even though the new restraints upon these instruments are entirely un-necessary to meet WTO-compatibility requirements.There is no obstacle to the Commission agreeing to unconditionally revise these issues, as repeatedly requested by the ACP – without expecting the ACP to trade off such revisions against the acceptance of additional commitments on services, investment, government procurement and other trade-related issues.
