Europe resorts to name calling

A top EU trade envoy has launched a scathing attack on South Africa, accusing it of being ‘a bully’ and ‘acting in bad faith’ in relation to its partners in the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu).

Ivano Casella, the EU’s trade negotiator for the Southern African Development Community (SADC), said he believed South Africa wanted to disband Sacu, as it was not in the country’s interests to continue to share customs revenue with the region.Casella’s comments, made at a seminar on international trade in Brussels on Wednesday, relate to South Africa’s controversial role in regional talks over interim economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the EU. Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (BSL), as well as Mozambique, last month signed such an agreement with the EU. Critics of EPAs argue they will expose local producers to competition they cannot meet.South Africa has refused to sign an EPA because, among other reasons, it fears the rules of the arrangement would not protect the fragile local clothing and textile industry from competition from EU goods.The country has threatened to police Sacu borders now that some of the partners have signed the EPAs.’We feel South Africa is looking to use the EPA to portray the EU as a bully, oppressing the region, when in fact South Africa is the bully,’ Casella said.He said the EPA was South Africa’s ‘pretext for disbanding Sacu, maybe because of the revenue distribution’. Under Sacu’s revenue sharing arrangement, South Africa effectively subsidises the region.His views were echoed by Jacques Wunenburger, the head of the European Commission EPA unit, who said: ‘The key issue is that South Africa has a low interest in Sacu because it is too costly and South Africa has other priorities.’EPAs were designed to fill the gap created by the end of the Cotonou agreement with 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries that fell outside World Trade Organisation rules. Countries trading under the agreement were given a seven-year grace period until 2007.The EPAs are ‘asymmetrical’ as the countries are less developed – they get quota- and tariff-free access to EU markets in return for lesser concessions to the EU.In addition to South Africa, which signed a Trade Development Co-operation Agreement (TDCA) with the EU in 2000, Namibia and Angola have also refused to sign an EPA.Casella said the interim EPAs were an ‘attempt to build on the TDCA’.The Department of Trade and Industry has described Casella’s comments as ‘unfortunate, to say the least’.Phemelo Marishane, the director of the department’s Sacu unit, said EPA concerns were discussed and agreed to by all SADC EPA states, some of whom were Sacu members.Marishane said that ‘the EU recognises these concerns as unresolved negotiating issues’, adding that South Africa remained committed to the customs union.-Business Report