The Laggards That We are
By: Tsudao Gurirab
IS Namibia risking tumbling out of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)? The short answer is, probably not. But we need to qualify our answer by adding a few more details so as to complete the narrative, as this issue has been cluttered by unnecessary bluster, misinformation and some unhelpful confusion.
The statement by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Calle Schlettwein, about a fortnight ago in Parliament, is as good a place to start as any. The minister was briefing Parliament on the status of the negotiations on the EPA and the potential impact of the new “conclusion date” announced by the Europeans.
To be sure, the EPA negotiations have been necessitated by a successful petition by the USA launched in 1996 on the non-reciprocal trade preferences of the Cotonou Agreement. The WTO [World Trade Organisation] panel found in USA’s favour and as a consequence, the preferential trade arrangements in favour of the ACP countries needed to be phased out as they run counter to the core principle of WTO. And so EPAs were conceived by the EU, way back in 2007, as an escape route from the Cotonou Agreement to a new WTO-compliant regime. Despite all this, the recent briefing by the minister excited the MPs such that, in response, they declared readiness to die for the country should the obnoxious Europeans dare to exclude our products from their markets. For this reason, it may be of benefit to all if we unpack how we got in this bind in the first place.
Yes, the evidence of the involvement of our erstwhile colonial masters is overwhelming as all can tell from the scene of the crime. But as cultured folks, let us start at the beginning, for it was 50 years ago, at Yaoundé [Cameroon], that the first of the development assistance and trade agreements were signed between what has now become the EU and the countries of ACP (African, Pacific, Carribean countries). The idea of this scheme of things was to control the manner of development assistance as well as the conduct of trade from the former colonies. And it was particularly the Belgians, the Dutch, the French and the British who were in the vanguard of this stratagem. What started in Yaoundé was later strengthened through the Arusha Agreement, the Lome Conventions (I, II and III) and finally the Cotonou Agreement. In the area of trade, the key concession to the ACP group was the preferential market access of ACP exports to Europe. But as we have shown above, WTO has finally put paid to that as it offends the new religion and architecture for the conduct of global trade.
At the core of the global trade regime is the notion of the Most Favoured Nation which dictates that preferential treatment extended to one country must, ipso facto, be extended to all. There are, of course, a series of exemptions from this general rule including granting developing countries non-reciprocal preferences for a specified period. And this is the facility which the EU is employing to transform (some) of the Cotonou Agreement preferences via EPAs to ACP. But this is, of course, easier said than done. For example, the LDCs in the ACP already have a far better market access than is being offered under EPA. And in the regional grouping under which Namibia negotiates, apart from ourselves we find LDCs and South Africa, the latter having already signed a Trade, Development Cooperation Agreement (TDCA) with the EU, contrary to the sentiment expressed by our heads of state at the SACU Summit this past weekend in Gaborone, Botswana, to negotiate as a group with third countries.
Some within SACU have already rushed with indecent haste to sign up to the interim EPA. Given these circumstances, it calls for the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job to craft a regional EPA which will offer benefits to all.
Of course, it is true, that as a SACU member country, EU products enter our country duty free at the moment. But this is a consequence of unilateral action on the part of South Africa in concluding the TDCA. As developing countries and as Africa, particularly, in this instance of EPAs, we have shown ourselves up as the laggards we are. By the time our leaders took the belated decision, at the AU level, on the modus operandi of our common approach to EPA negotiations, the train had already left the station and the EU had long decided on our behalf the configuration of the regional groupings as well as the script for negotiations. It showed up yet again our pathetic diplomacy, inertia and lack of solidarity among ourselves.
The regional groupings foisted upon us via EPAs made nonsense of our own continental regional integration efforts, thus exacerbating the regional economic institutional cacophony ante, but also with the potential to wreck it. The Europeans have now flagged 1 October 2014 as the D-day for the conclusion of the signing of EPA. Don’t hold your breath.