West Africa (ECOWAS)

 

The last session of negotiations was held on 22-26 March in Brussels. The contentious issues remained unresolved. On market access the EU still insists on an opening of 80% in 15 years; the flexibility so often declared by the EU in public has not translated in concrete actions at the negotiation table. West Africa increased its offer to 69.8% in 25 years, whereas the civil society organisations in West Africa distanced themselves from this latest offer.

 

West Africa submitted proposals for a total of 9.5 billion Euro in development assistance. The EU replied with a only non-committal declaration that they would look into the possibility giving some of this amount but refused to make any concrete commitment. There is no sign that the EU intends to give anything beyond what it already foreseen in the EDF. Also the draft version of the European Council conclusions on this issue to be approved later this month contains only generic language and no clear commitment to make additional resources available.

 

The EU declared that it will never accept an EPA without the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause. West Africa replied that it will never accept an EPA with the MFN clause in it, but is beginning to show some flexibility regarding the language of the clause.

 

ECOWAS only wants a generic rendez-vous clause (which establishes how the negotiations will go on once an interim EPA is signed) which gives them time to look regionally at the issues (services, government procurement, Intellectual Property Rights) to see if they want to go forward on some of them. The EU wants all of them to be included and a clear commitment to them, whereas ECOWAS finds this unacceptable.

 

The signing of an IEPA in the next months seems unlikely.

 

 

Central Africa (CEMAC)

 

Since February 2009 there has been no formal negotiation round between Central Africa and the EU, mostly because the Cameroon interim EPA caused tensions and mistrust in the region.

 

In March 2010 a ministerial meeting was held in Cameroon in order to see how to restart negotiations. The objective was to highlight the situation inside the region and to give guidelines for possible technical negotiations. In 2008 Central Africa had proposed a market opening of 71%, in the new proposal they went back to 60%. The EU saw this as a sign that Central Africa is not interested in having an EPA.

 

Central Africa had already accepted the MFN clause - which is also in Cameroon's interim EPA. In March it was decided to ask not to include it. The EU again saw this as a sign that Central Africa’s lack of interest in an EPA.

 

Cameroon sent a letter to the EU asking to be allowed to postpone the implementation of its interim EPA, which should have started in January 2010. The EU did not formally reject the request but said it had to be addressed by the specific committee foreseen in the interim EPA. The fact is that if Cameroon began implementation it would definitively throw region into chaos.

 

 

Southern Africa (SADC)

 

The members of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) sent a letter to Trade Commissioner de Gucht stating that it would not be fair to penalise Namibia, which had signaled its intention to sign the EPA once its concerns were addressed, while the negotiating process is still ongoing. In the letter they also warned of the possible negative consequences for the region of a hurried ratification (and notification to the WTO) of the interim EPAs that had been signed last year. In his answer de Gucht limited himself to pointing out the legal obligations of those who had signed and invited those who had not to do so swiftly. He did not address the concerns expressed by the SADC members.

 

 

Eastern Africa (EAC)

 

There have been no relevant developments over the last month and nobody is at the moment in the position to say if the region is close to signing the interim EPA or not.

 

 

Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA)

 

Negotiations have made no noticeable progress since some ESA countries signed the interim EPA last August - while others refused. A meeting between Karel de Gucht and Zambia's Minister for Trade, Felix Muntari, produced nothing concrete. Malawi in the meanwhile announced that it does not intend to sign an EPA. As Malawi is an LDC benefiting from the ‘Everything but Arms’ programme, this will not have practical consequences for Malawi.

 

 

Overview of the situation in the single regions

 

Country	LDC[1]	Trading Regime	EPA initialled	EPA signed
ESA Formation
Comoros	Y	IEPA[2]	2007	Refused to sign in 2009
Dijbouti	Y	EBA[3]
Eritrea	Y	EBA
Ethiopia	Y	EBA
Madagascar	Y	IEPA	2007	29/08/2009
Malawi	Y	EBA		Refused EPAs
Mauritius	N	IEPA	2007	29/08/2009
Seychelles	N	IEPA	2007	29/08/2009
Sudan	Y	EBA
Zambia	Y	IEPA	2007	Wanted more time in 2009 before signing
Zimbabwe	N	IEPA	2007	29/08/2009
EAC Formation
Burundi	Y	IEPA	2007
Kenya	N	IEPA	2007
Rwanda	Y	IEPA	2007
Tanzania	Y	IEPA	2007
Uganda	Y	IEPA	2007
SADC Formation
Angola	Y	EBA
Botswana	N	IEPA	2007	04/06/2009
Lesotho	Y	IEPA	2007	04/06/2009
Mozambique	Y	IEPA	2007	15/06/2009
Namibia	N	IEPA	2007	Refused to sign in 2009, wants contentious issues to be addressed first
South Africa	N	TDCA[4]
Swaziland	Y	IEPA	2007	04/06/2009
CEMAC Group
Cameroon	N	IEPA	2007	15/01/2009
Chad	Y	EBA
Cent. Afr. Rep	Y	EBA
Congo-Brazzaville	N	GSP[5]
DRC-Congo	Y	EBA
Equatorial Guinea	Y	EBA		Recently declared it will consider signing EPAs only in 2020
Gabon	N	GSP
S. Tomé/Principe	Y	EBA
ECOWAS Group
Benin	Y	EBA
Burkina Faso	Y	EBA
Cap Verde	Y[6]	EBA
Cote d'Ivoire	N	IEPA	2007	26/11/2008
Gambia	Y	EBA
Ghana	N	IEPA	2007
Guinea Bissau	Y	EBA
Liberia	Y	EBA
Mali	Y
Mauritania	Y	EBA
Niger	Y	EBA
Nigerian	N	GSP
Senegal	Y	EBA
Sierra Leone	Y	EBA
Togo	Y	EBA