cotonou-epa-acp-eu-civil-society-accra-pt

NATIONAL SEMINAR ON ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS BETWEEN ACP COUNTRIES AND THE EU

ACCRA, GHANA

DECLARATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

We, the representatives of civil society organisations in Ghana, at a two-day national seminar on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and ACP countries from 28^th to 29^th August, 2004 in Accra, reiterate our commitment to any programme that seeks to build on “the regional integration of ACP states” and “promote sustainable development and contribute to poverty eradication in ACP countries”.

Whilst the EPAs states these prospects as part of its objectives, the reality, given the current terms of the agreement and the structures in place, shows that the outcome will be at complete variance with the stated objectives.

EPAs will endanger ACP countries’ regional integration efforts, expose ACP products to unfair European competition in domestic and regional markets thus resulting in deeper unemployment, loss of livelihoods, food insecurity, social inequality, significant losses in public revenue from the elimination of import duties, limitation in domestic economic-policy determination and exacerbate brain drain menace.

This position is informed by the fact that we strongly believe that:

1. ACP countries have already opened up their economies enough to the rest of the world, especially to the EU and not much has come out of it. Further liberalisation will derail ACP economies and plunder ACP countries into perpetual poverty.

2. ACP countries do not have the structures that will give them initial fair grounds to stand to competition from the EU. The basic structures that complement liberalisation and its associated gains are virtually non-existent. Import duties that form a substantial part of ACP states’ revenue, which could have been used to set up these structures, will be lost and these structures may therefore never come.

In the light of the above observations, the ACP civil society platform makes the following recommendations to our government and to the EU:

Recommendations to Government

1. Government should intensify dialogue with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and all stakeholders to be able to assess the true impact of such an agreement. Rushing into this agreement without the necessary impact assessment will not reflect the true impact of the agreement on different sectors of the economy. There is the need to conduct a comprehensive impact assessment in order to come up with a well-considered position before going into the EPA agreement. Such impact assessment should be funded by ACP countries and directed by local expertise.

2. In the meantime, government should be more focused on developing and deepening the industrial base of the economy to put the economy on a sound footing before it sets off to compete with the more established firms in the EU. It is imperative that programmes such as the creation of a venture capital fund, other micro financing schemes for small and medium scale manufacturing units be vigorously pursued and efforts at removing the constraints to the growth of the manufacturing sector be intensified.

3. Government should consider providing some form of support and/or reintroducing specific interventions for vital sub-sectors in the agricultural sector. In this regard, we strongly believe that the poultry industry is vital for increasing the protein intake by the average Ghanaian and therefore government should help rescue the poultry industry from total collapse by re-instituting support in the production of poultry feed through the importation of feed mill, soybeans, maize to reduce the cost of producing poultry feed which ensured the growth of the poultry industry in Ghana in the 1970s and 1980s.

4. Government should consider, as a matter of urgency, putting in place a national trade policy, which represents the views of all actors and stakeholders to guide and inform all our trade relations so that our stand in any trade negotiation will be consistent with our national development and regional objectives.

To the governments of all ACP countries, we recommend that:

1. ACP governments should not succumb to EU pressure to timelines that are not defined by our particular needs and circumstances so that comprehensive impact studies can be carried out to assess institutional capacities of ACP countries.

2. African governments should intensify efforts at African unity, which aims at an African integration that creates economic space for the implementation of African-generated development plans and gaining strength to achieve a more favourable relationship with the global system. African Integration as envisaged by the EPAs (based on dividing the ACP group into six subgroups and ensuring deeper integration within each sub region) will reverse the positive gains already made towards Africa’s integration, create further tensions within the ACP group and reverse the unity exhibited during the Cancun talks.

3. We recognise that there are different levels of development among the ACP countries. To consolidate the unity and solidarity that saw ACP countries as “victors” at Cancun, ACP countries should ensure greater technical co-operation, sharing research, and building each other’s capacities for trade negotiation.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE EU

1. That the EU should give the ACP countries enough time and space to pursue their own development-centered and all embracing integration agenda in order to put their economies on a sound footing before entering the EPAs negotiation

2. That any EPAs agreement should be based on non-reciprocity as instituted in the General System of Preferences (GSP) and Special and Differential Treatment in the WTO.