REPA Booklet - Stop Epa

7
Recasting the ACP in Europe’s Image
Why did the European Union favour the idea of ‘differentiated reciprocity’?
They believed that Europe’s model of regional economic integration could and should be adapted across the
ACP. The process of creating an integrated market economy would help the ACP States to speed up neoliberal
reform and socio-economic transformation, and dilute the disruptive impacts of ‘dysfunctional’ states:
The creation of political and economic areas which go beyond national boundaries has been
recognized as a necessary step for Europe and is so for the ACP States as well. The path of regional
cooperation and integration seems advisable not only because of the generally inadequate economic
size of many ACP countries but also because such an option can encourage political leaders to
adopt a more strategic approach to developing their economies. It is also likely to speed up the
socioeconomic transformations which are needed to develop a market economy and do away with
clientelist structures often organized on a national basis.
“In the Green Paper
the Caribbean is an
aside and the Pacific
an afterthought,
bordering on a
footnote.”
(Grynberg 1997)
So ACP States should model themselves on the European Union?
Apparently. This ignored the fact that European economic integration was an incremental process, driven by
unique historical, economic and political circumstances over almost 50 years. The Green Paper assumed that
the EU could be artificially replicated in the diverse, poverty-stricken and non-industrialised sub-regions of
Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific within an externally imposed deadline of 2008 plus 10 years for implementation.
How did the European Commission plan to divide the ACP into regions?
The Green Paper spent many pages setting out the sub-regional configurations for Africa, ignoring the effect on
Africa’s own strategies for regional integration if they had to negotiate with the Commission according to its plan.
Where did the Pacific Islands fit into the Europeans’ new scheme?
The Pacific Islands were largely invisible. The Green Paper was really the Europeans’ plan for Africa,
especially Sub-Saharan Africa. It made occasional references to the Caribbean, but even these seemed token.
In a document of more than 70 pages the Pacific Islands appeared in three short paragraphs. These exposed
an appalling mix of ignorance and disinterest. One paragraph, for instance, was about ‘emerging economies
[that have] shown themselves capable of reform’. It had one sentence on the Pacific, which said ‘In the Pacific,
PNG has, since 1989, participated in the APEC-led liberalisation process’. But PNG only joined APEC in 1992
and its (failed) neoliberal reforms had been adopted because of debt conditionalities. The Individual Action Plan
it produced for APEC was not produced until 1995, and the promises it made for more privatisations, etc were
quite unrealistic.
What regional integration agreements did the Commission expect the Pacific Islands to build on?
That was another example of poor knowledge and/or disinterest, and seemed to relate more to the European’s
interests than to those of the Pacific Islands.
The ACP States of the Pacific are all members of regional organizations which are relatively welldeveloped
at economic and political level, as well as technical level. Effective cooperation with this
region of the world would mean extending the framework of cooperation to other island states in the
Pacific. In this extended framework, the Community’s interests lie in two specific areas: preservation
of the environment and of the region’s considerable natural resources and trade promotion, especially
with APEC countries.
But the only regional organisation that all Pacific ACP States belonged to in 1996 was the Pacific Islands Forum,
whose Leaders did not resolve to ‘embrace globalisation’ until 1997 and then in a very undeveloped form. The
Melanesian Spearhead Group trade agreement was not signed until 1998 and only covered four Islands. PNG
was the only Pacific Island member of APEC.
Didn’t the Green Paper recognise the special vulnerabilities of the Pacific Islands?
One paragraph refers to ‘Problems peculiar to the small island economies of the Pacific’. It made no attempt to
explain these problems, beyond saying that:
These countries have every interest in gearing themselves to the booming economies of the “Pacific
Rim”, with the support of Australia and New Zealand. Problems relating to transport and
communications, on the one hand, and the environment and preservation of natural resources as
the main economic resource, on the other, will require particular attention.
20
A People’s Guide To The Pacific’s Economic Partnership Agreement