Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-07-01-Speech-2-181"
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".
I shall try to answer Mr Posselt’s question about trade relations between Africa and the European Union as briefly as I can. In trading matters, we are clearly Africa’s main partner, with bilateral trade worth around EUR 150 billion, according to the figures for 2000, in other words, just under half of all Africa’s external trade.
This being the case, if we look at the matter in terms of trends, and more particularly of the trend to which the question refers, that is, trade between the Union and countries located south of the Sahara, the rate of change is clearly slow. If we look at the ACP countries in the sub-Saharan zone, the trend is for slight average growth, with some slumps, and I shall return to this. It is, in any event, lower than the growth in world trade. In the long term, the trend is for a slight increase, with total exports to Europe to the tune of EUR 30 billion. And, as I said, within this trend for a slow average increase there are occasional slumps. This was the case, for example, between 2001 and 2002, despite the ‘Everything but arms’ initiative which, in that period, provided around EUR 90 million for the whole of 2002, which was the first full year in which the system was implemented. The ‘Everything but arms’ initiative, therefore, to some extent offset the slump observed in 2001 and 2002.
Beyond the figures, the main problem lies in the make-up of trade and exports from those countries, which still contains structural weaknesses because it is essentially dominated by some basic products, such as oil, diamonds and cocoa. Furthermore, around one third of exports from African countries to Europe consist of farm produce, which also makes our market the major outlet for African exports.
How can we improve the situation? I think that the concept involves trying to improve these countries’ abilities to export to us and to diversify their economies. In order to achieve this we have a policy that has now stabilised and is one with which the European Parliament is familiar, because we discuss it often: first of all, stepping up regional integration amongst African countries themselves; second, strengthening economic and trade links between these countries and the EU; and lastly, gradually integrating African countries into the world economy, because we cannot lay claim to an exclusive relationship with them and nor would this be in their interests.
To help us achieve this aim we also have a framework – the Cotonou framework – as well as negotiations on economic partnership agreements, which are making progress. At multilateral level, we have the framework of the WTO. This is why we are now in continuous discussion, if I may put it this way, with our African colleagues, not only in the context of regional relations – and I am here talking about the negotiations on economic partnership agreements – but also multilaterally, given the topicality of the Doha round of negotiations. In this context, we Europeans clearly have a partial responsibility to ensure that all these negotiations meet Africa’s needs because, in my opinion, our African friends now have the means, which they did not have in the past, themselves to identify how this type of negotiation can best meet their needs."@en1
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