REPA Booklet - Stop Epa

The description of reciprocal trade agreements as ‘Economic Partnership Agreements’ feeds an illusion that these
are about cooperation and partnership, rather than profits and power.
The claim that granting reciprocal free trade access into ACP markets for European goods will promote sustainable
development and poverty alleviation is outrageous. Reciprocal trade in goods will threaten the survival of small
local business and wage-earning jobs, with no guarantee that any replacements will emerge.
Free access for subsidised European agricultural products will undermine the viability of local food producers and
intensify pressure for subsistence farmers to shift to contract-based, male-dominated cash crop production for
export. Threats to food security and risks of famine are predicted to intensify.
Pressure from the European Commission for negotiations on services is designed to complement and advance its
agenda in the current WTO negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The Commission’s
GATS ‘requests’ to ACP countries are expected to provide the starting point for Economic Partnership Agreement
negotiations. For two of the Pacific Islands these requests include removing foreign ownership restrictions on land.
The creation of a EU Water Facility for ACP countries has fuelled speculation that it also intends to use these
negotiations to secure access for its water transnationals to control the ‘markets’ of ACP countries.
Proposals from ACP countries for temporary rights of access for their people to work in semi- or unskilled services
jobs in the European Union raise sensitive domestic questions of immigration and have implications for WTO
negotiations, both of which will determine the Commission’s response.
The alternatives available to ACP countries that decide not to participate in reciprocal trade arrangements – the
Everything But Arms option for Least Developed Countries and the General System of Preferences for ‘developing’
countries - carry fewer risks, but leave those countries at the whim of the European Union which can alter or
eliminate those arrangements at will.
The European Commission acknowledges that its agenda for the ACP countries will require major economic and
social restructuring that may produce political upheaval. It also says it is the sovereign responsibility of governments
to maintain that policy agenda, assisted by binding commitments in trade agreements and rewards through European
aid funding for those who display ‘good governance’. This linkage of aid and trade denies the democratic right of
citizens to determine their own futures and removes the policy space that is necessary for ACP governments to
respond to national development priorities.
The European Commission insists that it will not provide additional funding to meet ‘adjustment costs’ which it admits
will result from its agenda. This allows it to secure the benefits of market access for its exports and investors, while
the costs remain a burden on the governments and people of ACP countries.
The Sustainability Impact Assessment commissioned by the European Commission from a consortium led by
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, one of the world’s largest transnational management corporations, is a farcical exercise
that serves no purpose other than compliance with European Union requirements that such a study has been done.
The Cotonou Agreement talks about empowering civil society, when it is really empowering capital and creating
new national elites. The participation of ‘civil society’ and ’non-State actors’ in the process and the desire to promote
‘ownership’ at the national level are never allowed to dispute the European Union’s neoliberal development
paradigm. Despite an unprecedented level of consultation and disclosure with ‘non-State actors’ since 2001, very
few educated people are aware of what is at stake, let alone the ordinary people whose lives could be turned upside
down. This reflects the complexity of the issues and the lack of understanding and capacity among governments as
well as their peoples.
Non-government organisations are playing a vitally important role, both as critics on the outside and as educators
and catalysts working with governments in the negotiating process, to encourage their governments to say ‘no’ to
the European Union’s agenda and to advocate a development paradigm that genuinely reflects the needs of their
people and their countries.
A People’s Guide To The Pacific’s Economic Partnership Agreement 11