Posted January 30, 2008
African Leaders Showed A United Front By Rejecting
Europe's
Paternal's Trading Relationship With The Mother Continent
By Nyankor Matthew
Contributing Writer
The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)
between the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) and the European Union (EU) are
essentially free trade areas (FTAs) in which farmers, producers and
companies from the poorest Eastern and Southern African (ESA) countries are
set to compete openly for their domestic market with their richest, highly
industrialized and often subsidized counterparts in the EU.
The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) was
negotiated by the European Commission on behalf of the European Union, with
six groups of African Caribbean and Pacific countries. Four of the groups
are African countries. The two other groups are the Caribbean and the
Pacific regions. EPA negotiations started in 2002 and were due to be
concluded by 31 December 2007. It was envisaged that the EPAs would be in
place on 1 January 2008, but during the December negotiations, many African
leaders showed a united front by rejecting the trade deals offered by the
Europeans. The united front in opposing the trade deal is being led by the
President of the African Union Commission Alpha Oumar Konare, Senegalese
President Abdoulaye Wade and his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki. The
trio has also criticized the selective signing of trade pacts as posing a
threat to Africa's unity.
Recently a few African countries decided to sign
an interim trade deal with the EU, leading some African leaders to accuse
Europe of using its dominant position to employ a "divide and conquer"
strategy that would destroy Africa's unity on this issue. It is alleged
that many of these trade deals were reached because the European Commission
had threatened to impose heavy tariffs on goods from ACP countries destined
for the Union's markets; this lead to a situation where a country that was
unwilling to sign the deal did so under pressure and with little
enthusiasm. At the recent summit held on December 10th to
negotiate new (EPAs), the African Union commission president, Alpha Oumar
Konaré denounced the EPAs by stating: "No one will make us believe we don't
have the right to protect our economic fabric … It is time to bury
definitively the colonial past. We can no longer be merely exporters of raw
materials. We can no longer accept being solely an import market for
finished products".
Certain trade privileges – that have given
Europe competitive trade advantage - have existed between European
countries and their former colonies, have been declared illegal by the WTO
which is demanding that many of these trade privileges enjoyed my Europe be
scrapped. The new EPAs that should have been signed at the end of December
31st 2007 would open up African markets to aggressive European
competition, which will have the effect of further devastating African
economies. The World Trade Organization has ruled that the EU's 30-year-old
preferential trade agreement with Africa was unfair to other trading nations
and violated international rules. Many African leaders were hoping that New
EPA deals would have been an opportunity to replace colonial-era trading
systems between Europe and its former colonies with new deals that would
benefit not only Europe, but the mother Continent as well. The negative
effects of the liberalization of trade and investment within weaker
economies have already been extensively documented, and acknowledged in
relation to the 'structural adjustment programs' suffered by many African
nations for decades. Europe's imposition of inappropriate demands for
competition through the EPAs - if accepted by our leaders - will be
extremely detrimental to many African countries that are already
economically weak, when compared to the European nations they are
negotiating with.
I applaud our leaders for standing their ground
and demanding changes to Europe's neo-colonial economic trade deals. The
mother Continent has what Europe needs, and at some point Europe will have
to realize that we Africans want economic success as much as they do. How
our leaders deal with finalizing these deals will determine the kind of
economic relationship the mother continent will establish with Europe for
the next 50 years and beyond. I hope that the days of our former and
current oppressors dictating to Africa on how it should deal with its
internal affairs and the critical issues of African development and
progress, will be on the minds of our leaders as they find ways to liberate
the mother continent from Europe's economic and political stranglehold. It
is a new economic time and a new economic order, and Europe must realize
that any trade deals made with Africa will be one that benefits both
parties.
For too long Europe has enjoyed preferential
trade arrangements with its former colonies; but this is a new day and a new
time. We Africans are beginning to wise up and take control of our
economies and destinies, be it political, social, financial, or economic.
How can we be confident about our future when we aren't willing to stand
firmly and take control of that future? If we allow other people to create
our reality, they'll control our past, present, and future. The future
belongs to those who prepare for it today. Our future won't belong to us if
we allow others to prepare it for us. The EPA negotiations is more than just
economic deals, it is about the realignment of the global order, so that our
social, economics, political, etc, can be consolidated and controlled by us,
and I applaud some of our African leaders for coming forward boldly and
deliberately, and attempting to establish a new order that will dismantle
the European economic stranglehold on the mother continent.
nyankorm@gmail.com.
