Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-09-12-Speech-3-420-000"
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"en.20120912.23.3-420-000"2
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"Mr President, some Members of this House have been receiving fearsome messages about the EU being on the verge of burying 18 developing countries, and you have just heard it from the rapporteur.
What this agreement is about is the past: EPAs initialled by the end of 2007. So it is not about negotiations on comprehensive EPAs, the argument invoked by some to justify an extended deadline. This is an agreement about doing away with the past, it is not about the future.
If there is such heavy resistance today from those who would prefer to extend the status quo, I cannot help but ask a question. Are we not letting down a promising entrepreneurial class in eight ACP countries if the 2014 deadline is extended? Why should a Kenyan, an Ivorian or a Namibian business person who has an innovative idea, finds a niche market and wishes to develop a product with the assistance of good European machinery, continue to have to pay very heavy import duties for the next two, four or even seven years? How can that business idea grow if inputs are expensive? How many new jobs could be created if tariff barriers were removed? Why do we continue to see Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific as not being capable of exporting much more than basic agricultural commodities? That is so far from present-day realities and needs. Sometimes wanting to do good is actually the enemy of the good.
In conclusion, as Trade Commissioner-designate, I took a pledge before this Parliament in February 2010 to uphold and further strengthen the multilateral trading system. At the time I also understand my ambition is to bring EPA negotiations to a successful conclusion provided the results are WTO-compatible and can foster development.
As a Commissioner I am also bound by EU law. For these reasons, as well as my conviction that free trade deals serve poor countries better, I continue to support the Commission proposal to amend the Market Access Regulation with legal effect on 1 January 2014 and I very much hope that this wisdom will also convince Parliament.
What you are not being told is the following. Up until the end of the 1990s, the EU was granting African, Caribbean and Pacific countries special unilateral tariff preferences that were more generous than the Generalised System of Preferences. Other trade partners attacked us over this in Geneva.
Under WTO rules, special preferences cannot discriminate between countries in a similar economic situation except by waiver, which we were granted for the last time between 2000 and 2007. In the mean time we were expected to bring our trade relationship into line with WTO rules.
In 2000 the EU and ACP countries signed the Cotonou Agreement wherein they agreed without coercion to modernise their trade and aid relations. Let us not forget that until then, even these very generous preferences were not enough to improve ACP exports to Europe. Indeed, between 1967 and 1999 the ACP’s share in total EU imports fell from 7.7 % to 2.8 %, so we agreed in Cotonou – specifically in Article 16 of the Treaty – to conclude new bilateral trade agreements that would be WTO-compatible.
It was a proposal that made economic sense because of the poor experience with unilateral tariff preferences. But it was also one that matched the political moods at the time. The international community at large had finally understood that development policies which do not sustain good governance are simply not sustainable. EU trade policy had to reflect this too. I have said this before and I will say it again: the political value of bilateral trade agreements is that they create flanking policies and institutions to manage the implementation of commercial commitments. Besides stimulating the two-way flow of trade, lowering customs tariffs reduces the potential for poor governance, in particular corruption.
Let me try once again to explain what this regulation is about. In 2007, by the time we had conducted and concluded EPA negotiations with about half of the ACP countries, the EU, acting in good faith, passed the Market Access Regulation to allow our EPA partners continued market access to the EU on a duty-free, quota-free basis.
We did so on the understanding that our EPA partners would formalise their commitment to these agreements within a year or two by signing and ratifying them. Most EPA partners proved us right and did take the necessary steps. Eighteen had not until last year. But a few months later Zimbabwe ratified its interim EPA. Nine of the countries left are least developed countries and will continue to enjoy duty-free, quota-free status because they continue to be eligible for ‘everything but arms’ benefits.
That leaves us with only eight countries actually affected by the proposal we are discussing today. To be even clearer, we are talking about Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Fiji, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Swaziland, which makes me wonder why these particular eight countries need more time to adjust to a situation that was already required 12 years ago, when 87 countries and territories are adjusting to our 2011 GSP proposal in less than three years.
The broader picture on EPAs is really something to be proud of. We are continuing negotiations for comprehensive EPAs with practically all the EPA regions and I have a small set of outstanding issues left with the East African Community, with Western Africa and with EPA partners in the Southern Africa Development Community, the SADC. Furthermore we are implementing agreements concluded back in 2007 with the Caribbean, Papua New Guinea and four Eastern and Southern African countries. Some of them are also continuing negotiations to get to comprehensive regional agreements."@en1
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