Economic Partnership Agreements – EPAs for short – are essentially free-trade arrangements aimed at opening up the markets of poor countries to European goods.
Christian Aid and its allies in the trade justice movement, along with governments and campaigners in the affected countries, spoke out against these unfair deals.
The European Union used strongarm tactics to steer them through.
In October 2008 the Caribbean became the first region to sign a full EPA.
However, in all only half of the affected countries have ‘initialled’ any form of a deal as it was clear they were more focussed on opening markets for European exports than on the needs of developing countries.
Now we are upping the pressure on Europe's leaders to review and improve them.
So what's the problem?
The European Commission (which negotiates on behalf of European Union member states) had led negotiations with 76 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) over a five-year period.
The cost to Zambia could be $15.8 million
Throughout the years of negotiations, ACP governments and campaigners, including Christian Aid's overseas partners, expressed serious concerns that free trade between an established, wealthy trading bloc like the EU and their own poor economies will destroy farmers and industries in their own countries.
Put simply, poor-country producers cannot compete.
Despite these protests, the Commission forged ahead, and in December 2007 interim agreements were signed with a number of the 76 ACP countries.
Breaking the rules
Christian Aid and our partners in ACP countries are now pressing for the renegotiation of these agreements so they work for poor countries. We are calling for:
longer time periods for ACP countries to open their markets
safeguards so that ACP countries can protect themselves against surges of European imports that might hurt industries they are trying to get off the ground.
We are also campaigning to prevent the Commission pressuring ACP countries to open up their economies even further. The Commission is on record as saying it wants ACP states to sign agreements that would allow European companies to compete with them in services, such as providing banking.
Given that poor countries took on the World Trade Organisation on this issue and won, it is scandalous that they now find themselves having to refight the battle with the EU.
What’s at stake?
People’s livelihoods, millions of them.
Take Mozambique’s milling industry. It accounts for one-fifth of the country’s manufacturing, but also stimulates the growth of other industries such as packaging and the production of pasta, bread and biscuits.
And it has real potential to grow – that is unless Mozambique signs the trade deal with the EU.
At the moment, in order to offer the industry a level of protection, the government has placed a tax on imported flour from Europe. Signing an EPA will mean opening up the Mozambican market to cheap flour, threatening the viability of the milling industry and certainly preventing it from developing further.
This is just one small example of how EPAs will affect growing industries across the ACP. And that’s not considering the millions of farmers who will lose their livelihoods when their markets are flooded with cheap European products.
One estimate puts the potential losses to Zambia in signing an EPA at $15.8 million – what the country’s government spends each year on tackling HIV and AIDS.
Next page: the Caribbean experience
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