Third World Network exposes EU's "misinformation" campaign

Aburi, Oct. 1, GNA - The European Union (EU) has launched a "misinformation" campaign in a bid to confuse Africa Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement slated for December 31, Mr Tetteh Hormeku, Head of Programmes at the Third World Network, an NGO, said on Monday. He alleged that the EU was peddling information that Nigeria was negotiating alone with the Union as a way of hoodwinking other African countries into signing the Agreement.

Mr Hormeku was speaking at a workshop organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for members of the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) to enhance their knowledge on the EPA. The Economic Partnership Agreement is a proposed accord between the European Union and ACP countries to have reciprocal trading arrangement.

Reciprocal trading with the EU would mean that Ghana for instance would have 100 percent access to the European market while the EU would have 80 percent access to the Ghanaian market covering all forms of trade, duty free.

Mr Hormeku explained that Ghana did not have the capacity to trade with the EU because the EU had a powerful economy while Ghana had a weak one.

In addition, tariffs contributed a huge part of the country's revenue and said that according to the budget read in November last year Ghana earned 3 trillion from international trade taxes out of which 40 percent was from Europe.

He said services and trade related areas in the proposed agreement were not required at all and noted that they should not be part of the agreement since it contradicted the World Trade Organizations rules, which indicated that "services and trade related issues are neither necessary nor desirable."

Mr Hormeku said the EPA would lead to job destruction and loss of revenue for the country because the agreement would give European companies the chance to compete equally with the local industries. He urged the government to apply for the "Generalized System of Preference Plus (GSP+)" which is a kind of special incentive arrangement for sustainable developing countries that practiced good governance. He explained that the GSP+ was available to vulnerable and poorer countries and would give Ghana about 97 percent market access in the EU excluding services, investment and intellectual property rights. Mr Hormeku noted that Ghana qualified to apply for the GSP+ because it had signed almost all the international conventions, saying, "The EU has an obligation to give Ghana the GSP+ we only need to ask for it." He said the EU was being economical with the truth when it claimed that the Generalized System of Preference (GSP) was the only option available to countries that did not sign the EPA by the December 31 deadline.

Mr Kingsley Offei Nkansah, Deputy General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), said nothing would happen if Ghana did not sign the EPA by the December deadline. "If we do not sign the EPA by the end of the year the skies will not fall," he stressed and noted that the EU was determined to force the ACP countries to sign the agreement.

Mr Nkansah said the EU had interest in repositioning itself to take advantage of the opportunities in trade in the ACP countries and expressed concern about the way the EU was negotiating with individual member countries instead of negotiating with the ACP as a block. Mr Dick Niezer, EU Representative in Ghana in a statement, however, said the objective of the EPA was to help ACP countries to deal with the challenges of globalisation by developing stronger regional economies. He said there would be enough space to keep sensitive sectors like infant industries and the protection of the agricultural sector. "However, EPA will not be successful and will not be negotiated unless they go hand-in-hand with national and regional policies to strengthen local businesses. Private sector development and trade development are part of the wider Cotonou process," he noted.