EU faces struggle to get ACP deal

Date: 02/09/1999

By Shada Islam

THE EU faces an uphill struggle to finalise plans for a new trade and aid partnership with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries when the two sides meet for a fourth round of negotiations on a new agreement later this autumn.

Union negotiators will have to find fresh arguments to convince ACP countries to replace the 25-year-old Lomé Convention with regional economic partnership agreements based on reciprocal free trade. They will also have their work cut out to persuade the region to accept the concept of "good governance" as a keystone of an EU-ACP pact for the new millennium.

If the talks held in Brussels at the end of July are any indication, ACP governments are unlikely to bow to Union pressure for swift agreement on the free-trade pacts and will stand firm in rejecting attempts to attach new conditions to EU aid. The 71-member ACP group is also concerned about a possible decline in EU development spending given the Union's commitment to help rebuild war-devastated Kosovo.

The bloc's tough stance heralds a difficult autumn for negotiators on both sides, who are under instructions to conclude a new trade and aid deal by November to replace the Lomé accord, which expires next February.

The Union is adamant that any attempt to delay agreement on a new accord until after the Lomé expiry date would endanger the credibility of the EU-ACP relationship. But ACP negotiators say they would rather continue working for a good treaty than sign up to an early accord which fails to meet their development and commercial requirements.

Trade looks set to remain the most difficult issue. ACP countries which have long relied on duty-free access to European markets are balking at the idea of having to start lowering their own tariffs on EU goods - albeit gradually - as part of the regional free-trade agreements which are now on offer.

ACP ministers who attended the July meeting insisted that their countries need help integrating into a liberalised global economy and attracting foreign investments. They agreed that a new trade arrangement was needed, but Mauritius' Trade Minister Rajkeswar Purryag insisted that switching from a Lomé-type preferential arrangement to free-trade pacts would take time.

ACP governments are asking for a ten-year preparatory period, until 2010, before new regional free-trade pacts are implemented, rather than 2005 as the Union wants.

EU insistence on making good governance an "essential element" of the new pact - allowing the Union to suspend aid to countries where it believes state affairs are not managed correctly - has also run into fierce ACP opposition.

Finland's Development Minister Satu Hassi insists the EU is not trying to find new ways to "punish" ACP countries. "The message is that all governments have to put their citizens first," he said.

But ACP governments remain unwilling to accept new conditions being attached to the aid they receive from Europe.