EPAs continue to pose great challenge to ACP: SG
ACP PRESS RELEASE: 12 October 2009 - African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Secretary-General, Sir John Kaputin has re-iterated that the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) have continued to pose a great challenge to the ACP Group of States at the national, regional and all-ACP levels.
He told ACP chief negotiators attending the Meeting of the Technical Follow-up Group on negotiation and implementation of EPAs that the challenge is due to the fact that the EPA process has created a differentiation within the ACP as a Group and in some of the regions.
Sir John agreed that ACP regions and some ACP countries within their designated regions are progressing at variable speeds.
Overall, only 25 ACP countries have signed a full or interim EPA, 11 have initialled but not signed while 42 have neither initialled nor signed any agreement.
“The above state of affairs, which results in multiplicity of trade regimes between ACP regions and the European Union, does not bode well for strengthening of ACP-EU trade relations. Moreover, the unity and solidarity of the ACP Group is likely to be eroded. It is a matter of grave concern to me as Secretary-General. I believe that your regions and members states share this concern,” the Secretary-General, said.
Based on that, Sir John believed that the meeting of the chief negotiators was timely as it would allow them to analyse the current situation.
Following a stock taking of the state of play on the negotiations and implementation, the negotiators would delve into an examination of implementation issues relating to both the interim and full EPAs. This will entail a consideration of the institutional linkages between the EPAs and the Cotonou Agreement as well as EPAs and aid for trade.
The Secretary-General informed the negotiators that they would also consider how to move forward with the remaining aspects of the negotiations - from interim EPA to a full EPA - for the concerned ACP States and regions.
He noted that the time constraint that was imposed by Cotonou trade regime and the WTO waiver is no longer an impediment to pursuing further negotiations.
Despite that, Sir John reminded the chief negotiators to remain engaged and seek better outcomes especially because “we have noted that a number of contentions clauses remain in the initialled and signed interim EPAs.”
CURRENT STATE OF PLAY OF EPAS IN ACP
In the Caribbean region, Haiti is the only country that is yet to sign the full regional EPA.
On other side, across the sea in the Pacific, only one country Papua New Guinea has signed the interim EPA. Fiji which initialled an interim agreement is yet to sign while all the others have neither initialled nor signed any agreement.
In Africa the picture is even more uneven. On the East side of Africa, all the five countries, members of the East Africa Community have initialled interim EPAs but are yet to sign it.
On the West side, the ECOWAS and UEMOA members plus Mauritania, with the exception of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, have not yet initialled any agreement let alone sign it. Only the Côte d'Ivoire has both initialled and signed an interim EPA.
In Central Africa, Cameroon is the only country that has signed an interim EPA, while Ghana has only initialled an interim agreement.
In the ESA and SADC EPA regions, the picture is mixed.
In ESA, four countries have signed an interim EPA, one country has initialled an interim agreement while six countries are yet to initial or sign any agreement.
In the SADC EPA, four countries have signed an interim EPA, one has initialled but not signed while one country is yet to initial or sign any agreement. The other country in the region is South Africa which has a separate trade arrangement but has participated in the regional EPA.
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