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of them except Namibia. Namibia’s failure to sign the interim agreement isseverely delaying its start of operations, and the European Commission isputting the Namibian government under a lot of pressure to sign it. The mainobstacle raised by the Namibian representatives concerns the threat that anEPA will represent for regional integration, referring specifically to SACU. 15This opinion is shared by the South African government. On the other hand,Angola retains its previous regime due to it being an LDC, and Tanzania isnegotiating in the EAC, while South Africa exports to the EU under its ownTrade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA) 16 signed in 1999.Within the labyrinthine complexity of this map of agreements in the variousregions mentioned, the most troublesome case without doubt is that of theregional group SADC, characterised as it is by the fact that its members areparticipating in different negotiating groups within the Eastern and Southernregions of the continent. 1715 The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is composed of Botswana, Lesotho,Swaziland, Namibia and South Africa. In recent years, because of the signing of the interimEPAs with the EU by the first 3 of the mentioned SACU members, the other two have calledfor joint negotiations by the whole customs union as its rules demand.16 To prevent incoherence in the tariffs between SACU members, more than 50 TCDA tariffcategories have had to be changed to make consistent with those negotiated by the UE withBotswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.17 In West and Central Africa the present state of the EPA negotiations is limited: there are noregional agreements and only a few individual ones with non-LDCs.14
5. EPAs and development in Southern AfricaAs against the European Commission’s pro-EPA arguments, which owe a lotto classical Ricardian arguments in favour of free trade, a large range ofcritical positions have been put forward by African governments, academicsand civil society. 18 They point to the loss of customs revenues, the vulnerabilityof specific sectors to European competition, the EU’s double standards,negotiating weaknesses on the African side, distortions of the African regionalintegration processes and the inclusion in the negotiations of especiallycontroversial and difficult topics (such as the treatment of services, intellectualproperty rights, investment, public procurement and so on).5.1 – Trade issuesSince European markets for African products are already, with the exceptionof agriculture, largely liberalized, the main effect of EPAs will be to increaseEU exports to SSA. It is not very clear, however, that the new EPA model willcause an increase in the region’s exports to the EU. Those who will enjoybenefits from the new accords will be consumers in Southern Africa andproducers in the EU, to the detriment of the productive structure of the Africancountries on which the burden of adjustment will fall (Hurt, 2009; Goodisonand Stoneman, 2005).Recall that until recently the trade balance of the EU has been negative withboth SSA in general and SADC in particular. So, the opening of the markets ofthese African countries to EU exports will help both to reduce thatdisequilibrium and to slow down the growth of the exports from Asiancountries, especially from China, whose main trading partners in the regionare South Africa and Angola (Hurt, 2009, Naidu et al, 2009).18 Some studies, roundly opposed by the European Commission, adopt a clear position thatthese agreements are harmful to the ACP countries. The study EUROSTEP (2004): NewACP-EU Trade Arrangements: New Barriers to Eradicating Poverty? argues that the free tradeareas proposed by the EU will worsen unemployment, food insecurity, access to financing andto social services as well as the vulnerability of women.15
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