Government asked to clarify position on EPA

Accra, April 19, GNA - The Economic Justice Network, an advocacy group campaigning on trade issues, on Thursday called on government to clarify its position on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) being negotiated by the European Union (EU) with West African States. The group, made up of civil society organizations working on trade issues, maintained that signing on to the trade arrangement would harm the economies of member countries, worsen the terms of trade due to unbridled liberalization that was being sought and destroy livelihoods. At a press conference in Accra to mark International Civil Society Day of Action against the EPA, Mr Ibrahim Akalbila, National Coordinator of the Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition, who addressed the journalists called on Parliament to demand accountability from the government and the Minister of Trade on current development and future direction of the ongoing negotiations.

Besides, the group called on Germany, which currently holds the presidency of the EU to undertake to drop its aggressive liberalization demands and its abuse of process in the EPA negotiations, and to stop its wilful misinformation about the EPA to the public.

The agreement, for which negotiation would be completed by December and expected to come into effect by January 2008, would replace the current non-reciprocal trading arrangement between the EU and the African Caribbean and Pacific countries, which include the countries in West Africa.

Mr Akalbila said it was very difficult for civil society to understand the insistence of the EU to go on with the negotiations when it was apparently clear that the countries in the sub-region were not prepared for it.

"Our Ministers, knowing their weak strength asked for the deadline for finishing the negotiations to be extended for three years to enable them tackle the basic issues on the ground before entering the negotiations but this was bluntly refused by the EU."

Mr Akalbila said by asking the countries in West Africa to open their markets to cheap and subsidized imports from Europe, the EU was simply seeking the demise of these economies through the reciprocal trade regime being sought under the EPA.

"Any so-called partnership envisaged by the EPA is one of un-equals: West Africa is one of the poorest regions of the world, 13 of the 16 ECOWAS member-states are Least Developed countries, the EU with whom we now have to enter full equal competition with, is the world single largest trading bloc," he emphasized.

Ghana, Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire are the three developing countries in the sub-region. Mr Akalbila also faulted the EU on trying to smuggle through the EPA in a subtle way, issues on investment, government procurement and services, which the developing countries had refused to negotiate under the World Trade Organisation.

"It is not surprising that the construction of a partnership whose benefits to the world poorest is to shatter lives even more should proceed under a veil of secrecy, manipulation and deceit," he added. Apart from destroying local industries through cheap imports, Mr Akalbila said, the EPA would also undermine the domestic services sector by allowing EU companies to compete on the same terms as local companies.

"The reality is that local companies would not have the opportunity to develop their capacities enough to face competition. Government would not have the flexibility to support the local service providers because any support under Free Trade rules is seen as discrimination."

Mr Akalbila said any real and genuine partnership between Europe depended first on rejecting the EPA that was currently being negotiated. "Without the EPA we have a chance for a real partnership for development that would, for example enable developing countries to secure tariff income for developmental purposes and allow industries to build capacity."

The campaign on the theme: A partnership for development and Not a Free Trade Agreement," further demanded from the EU to heed to the three-year extension request made by the Ministers and asked for the maintenance of the current market access preferences.