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5.2 Related issuesInvestment, intellectual property rights, public contracts and competitionpolicies also form part of the negotiating package of the EPAs. If the capitalmarket is liberalised in the future it is possible to imagine a larger amount ofFDI going to the SADC countries. This reinforces the need to establish‘performance requirements’ for investors. Yet, just as in the case of the LatinAmerican Free Trade Agreements, the tendency here seems to be theopposite, in the sense that the failed initiative to set up a MultilateralAgreement on Investment Agreement (MAI) is now returning through the backdoor in the form of regional MAIs. The intention is to prioritise the interests ofthe foreign investors against those of governments which, as a result, losetheir room for manoeuvre to launch pro-development policies at a time whenmultinational companies are moving into their countries (Intermón-Oxfam,2008; Bidaurratzaga, 2008).As in the case of trade, the main reasons for the EU to put these trade relatedissues about the liberalisation of FDI on the negotiating agenda are thefollowing: the previous move by its main competitor, the USA, in the samedirection through its Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Latin Americancountries; and the increasing entry of capital into the region from other nontraditionalpartners such as China, India, Malaysia, the Arab countries, SouthKorea and Taiwan (UNCTAD, 2010).So the EU’s proposals try to go beyond its own Cotonou Agreement or theWTO rules, adding up to what has been called ‘WTO+’, which aims to makeprogress at the regional level on the negotiation of themes which are atpresent paralysed at the multi-national level of the WTO (Intermón-Oxfam,2008; Bidaurratzaga, 2008; Keet, 2007). In most cases the countries of SSAhave neither the capacity nor the need to negotiate such questions which theyhave encountered before in the WTO and which are not affected by the expiryof the waiver that the EU used as an argument for changing its previous model(Goodison, 2009; Intermón-Oxfam, 2008; Marín, 2008; Keet, 2007). The factthat the EU has managed to make these questions, which the developingcountries have always refused to negotiate in the WTO, part of the future20
negotiations on the completion of the EPAs shows the extent of asymmetrybetween the two parties’ negotiating strengths (Hurt, 2009).Mention should also be made of what are known as the ‘contentious issues’:the transition periods, the interpretation of the phrase ‘substantially all trade’,the principle of national treatment, regional preference, safeguard clauses andinfant industry provisions, the most favoured nation principle and rules oforigin. The degree of flexibility on these technical questions will determinewhether their effects will be more or less favourable to the development of thecountries in the region (Lui and Bilal, 2009).5.3 Additional confusion: regional overlappings in Southern AfricaFinally, as to the effect of the EPAs on the support and strengthening of thepre-existing regional groups in SSA, the results up to now are limited, andSouthern Africa is in this sense paradigmatic. In the case of SADC only 8 ofthe 15 members of the group are participating in the current negotiatingprocess and, of those, Tanzania has entered an interim agreement with theEAC. Of the rest, only 4 (Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique)have sign an interim agreement corresponding to a ‘disfigured SADC’. Recallthat the first 3 of these, plus Namibia and South Africa, 26 form the SACU, theoldest customs union on the continent. Angola will retain its previous status inits condition of LDC, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has for nowentered negotiations with the Central Africa, and the 6 remaining countries(Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe) alsobelong to the ESA group which is not, properly speaking, a regional groupingbut rather a geographical zone in which 16 members of COMESA participateas a EPA negotiating partner, but other COMESA members do not. Burundi,Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda (also COMESA members) have negotiated a26 The government of South Africa is particularly dissatisfied with the inclusion of a MostFavoured Nation clause in the interim EPA of the SADC group in which the majority of itsSACU neighbours are participating. This clause, which was not included in the previousagreement (TDCA) with the EU, limits South Africa’s trade negotiations with other countriessuch as Brazil and China (Hurt, 2009; Van der Holst, 2009). The disagreement inside SACU,whereby Namibia and South Africa oppose signing an interim SADC EPA, clearly shows thedistortions and fragmentation wreaked by the EPA framework on the pre-existing attempts atintegration in Southern Africa (Goodison, 2009).21
Page 2 and 3: opportunities and improve their com
Page 4 and 5: This kind of pattern has come to be
Page 6 and 7: Figure 1. Shares of various groups
Page 8: several writers as evidence of the
Page 11 and 12: the rest of the world, regardless o
Page 14 and 15: of them except Namibia. Namibia’s
Page 16 and 17: Among the questions which most worr
Page 18 and 19: Figure 5. Index of export concentra
Page 22 and 23: separate agreement with the EAC cus
Page 24: multilateral negotiating frameworks
Page 28 and 29: Hurt, S. (2009): ‘Economic Partne
Page 31 and 32: Annexe 1. The three main exports of
Page 33: Annexe 2. Global Competitiveness In

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