TRADE WORKING GROUP NEWS Feruary 2014
- Working for the Few
Oxfam International has recently published a report “Working for the Few” about the overwhelming economic inequalities between rich and poor. A cause of this impoverishment of the population and economic inequality are the unfair trade relations between developed and developing countries, and especially between Africa and Europe. These economic differences are not only a matter between North and South, but also among people of the same country. The liberalization of the market between Africa and Europe is not the solution for sustainable economic growth and puts at risk human progress. The result is that the elites of the countries are controlling the democratic institutions and economic inequalities are increasing in the majority of countries in Africa.
- Meeting between the ESA and the EU under Interim EPA negotiation
On January 28th 2014 the European commission hosted the meeting of the EPA Committee under the Interim Economic Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region and the European Union. While the EU insist on the potential benefits on this agreements as means to foster development and economic growth, the African party showed the concern about the challenges they were facing in respect to exports to the EU market.
- ECOWAS, EU to resume negotiations on economic partnership agreement
The EU wants the West African region (ECOWAS) to open up 80 per cent of its market to resume negotiations towards Economic Partnership Agreement, EPA, for the creation of a free trade area in the region. The negotiations suspended in 2012, following divergences over market access offer and the EPA Development Programme (EPADP), resumed in Senegal, last January. The EPADP is a dedicated funding programme to enable West Africa cope with the cost of adjustment to the impending trade regime. West Africa had offered to open 70 per cent of its market over 25 years, citing the protection of the region’s fragile industrial base from cheaper goods from the EU. ECOWAS, was also asking for 15 billion Euros in new funds for the EPADP, while the EU insisted that the programme should be funded from existing bilateral and multilateral contributions.