Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-28-Speech-3-128"
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"en.20071128.17.3-128"2
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"Mr President, I welcome this opportunity to explain where we are in the economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations. I am glad to note that the strategy proposed by the Commission in its communication of 23 October was endorsed by the Council last week. As Commissioner Mandelson said to Parliament’s Committee on International Trade last week, we have turned a corner in these negotiations.
Next week, the General Affairs and External Relations Council will decide on the EC regulation to implement the market access which has been offered to the ACP. It is the best ever offer in a bilateral agreement: full duty/quota-free access, with transition periods for only two products – sugar and rice.
We will continue to do everything possible to reach agreements. Our offer is on the table and the moment any ACP state provides a WTO-compatible offer to complete a deal, we can move quickly to propose to the Council that it should benefit from the EPA market access regulation.
We have indicated our willingness to work with subregions, if that is what the ACP states wish. We have agreed to continue negotiating beyond 1 January 2008 on other issues, like services, investment and other trade-related areas, which are such an important part of the development component of these agreements. We have delivered on our commitment to provide trade arrangements equivalent to or better than Cotonou to any country reaching an agreement with us. We have offered to open our markets fully and match the goods trade offer with generous services offers.
What we cannot do is extend the Cotonou trade regime while we continue negotiations. In the absence of an EPA, we have made clear that we cannot and will not propose solutions which are illegal or insecure.
Our ACP partners will need support to implement the agreements and make the necessary adjustments and reforms. This is why the Commission is working to ensure that the European Development Fund will make ‘aid for trade’ in the context of EPAs a priority. It is why we are working closely with Member States so that they bring additional money in the context of the newly-adopted EU aid-for-trade strategy.
We know that concluding these negotiations means taking difficult political decisions, but we welcome the leadership shown by those ACP regions and countries which have decided to join us in initialling EPA agreements. We will continue to support them as they implement the commitments they have made and as we work together to ensure that this is a trade relationship that genuinely contributes to their development.
These negotiations are moving very quickly. Let me give you a sense of where we stand at this moment. In East Africa, a stepping-stone agreement has been initialled with the East African Community: Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. We are very close to an interim deal with the Indian Ocean countries in the context of the Eastern and Southern Africa grouping.
In the Southern African Development Community, we have initialled a stepping-stone agreement with Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique. Angola will join as soon as it is able. South Africa and Namibia will decide on their participation in the next day.
Regarding the Pacific region, we are working in parallel on an umbrella agreement for the region as a whole and specific agreements on market access to safeguard the immediate interests of those countries which account for the region’s trade with the European Union. I expect agreement on those to be announced very shortly.
In the remaining regions, the picture is less clear. For West Africa and Central Africa, meetings are taking place with so-called ‘subgroups’. It is possible that we will be able to conclude interim agreements on goods with the countries most affected, which could then be enlarged to full EPAs with the whole region in 2008. That will, of course, depend on the wish of those concerned to take this route and to present WTO-compatible market access agreements.
In the Caribbean region, we have an agreement on nearly everything but, crucially, not on trade in goods, where the region’s proposal falls well short of what can be defended in the WTO. Negotiations are continuing, but we now need a clear political decision from the region to unlock the negotiations by producing a WTO-compatible market access schedule.
In all regions, we are taking a pragmatic and flexible approach to achieving what remains our objective for these agreements: full EPAs with four regions. This will modernise our trade relationship and put it at the service of development, so full agreement with four regions is our objective.
We have made significant progress in recent days, but we cannot today guarantee that there will be an agreement including new WTO-compatible trade arrangements with all ACP countries.
WTO compatibility is the essential component of all agreements, whether they are full EPAs, stepping-stone agreements, or even goods-only deals. Without this, we can only offer the generalised system of preferences."@en1
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