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The
Delegation,
In the light of Article 88-4 of the Constitution;
In the light of the partnership agreement between African, Caribbean and
Pacific (ACP) States and the European Community and its Member States,
called the Cotonou Agreement;
Whereas the partnership is based on the goal to reduce and eventually
eradicate poverty in ACP countries and whereas, in this respect, the
Millennium Development Goals, underwritten by all UN members, must
underlie cooperation between the European Union and ACP countries;
Whereas this major project could be challenged by the outcome of the
negotiations conducted since 2002 between the European Commission and
the six regions grouping ACP countries to conclude economic partnership
agreements (EPAs), which aim to substitute a free trade regime for the
present trade regime based on non-reciprocal preferences granted to ACP
countries. Whereas this is due to:
- A negotiation approach dominated by the concern to make trade
cooperation between the partners compatible with the rules of the World
Trade Organization (WTO), while complying with the deadline of 31
December 2007 set by the Organization;
- Noncompliance with the fundamental principle of differentiation
enshrined in Article 2 of the Cotonou Agreement, which lays down that `cooperation
arrangements and priorities shall vary according to a partner's level of
development, its needs, its performance and its long-term development
strategy';
- The European Commission's determination to impose the opening of
negotiations on topics - investment, competition and public procurement
- which have been withdrawn from multilateral trade negotiations;
- A programming of aid paid from the European Development Fund
(EDF) that is diverted to being mainly oriented to the roll-out of the
future trade agreements;
1. Is seriously concerned by the fact that the implementation of
free trade, despite the precautions currently envisaged by the European
Commission, will lead to a fiscal, agricultural, industrial and balance
of payments shock of such a degree for our partners that it could
compromise the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, whereas
Subsaharan Africa is suffering in this field from delays that are so
worrisome they form a threat for international peace and stability;
2. Feels that if negotiations continue down this path, the European
Union would commit a strategic, political, economic and social mistake
with respect to ACP countries, which will be paid by the disintegration
of an essential relationship for the construction of a safer and fairer
world and for European influence to radiate and count;
3. Calls on the EU Council of Ministers, following a joint
initiative by France and the United Kingdom, to rapidly give a new
negotiating mandate to the European Commission based on the following
principles:
- The present access regime for ACP countries to the European
market must be kept, whereas the capacity of these countries to comply
with the European Union's health and technical standards must be helped
and strengthened;
- Trade liberalisation with the European Union must not take place
until after a consolidation phase of the economic and customs unions of
the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the setting in place,
with support from the EDF, of national and regional development
strategies in the fields of education, health and infrastructures, and
an upgrading of their production capacity;
- The scope, steps and length of the implementation of
liberalisation must be determined on the basis of compliance with
economic and social criteria of development related to achievement of
the Millennium Development Goals, while a follow-up and evaluation
mechanism of the effects of tariff disarmament must always make it
possible to go back on the phases of the latter;
- The list of sensitive products excluded from the scope of
liberalisation must at least cover production essential for maintaining
subsistence agricultures and the present and future industrial fabric of
ACP countries;
- The negotiation of new trade related topics must not commence
unless expressly called for by regions grouping ACP countries;
- The European Union must subscribe to the proposals made by ACP
countries at the WTO to grant special tariff treatment to agricultural
produce related to their food security, as well as to their trade
preferences, and to revise Article XXIV of the GATT which frames the
formation of free trade areas, in order to specify that the reciprocity
required by this provision must take account of the special needs of
weak and vulnerable developing countries;
4. Calls
for European aid paid to ACP countries through the EDF to be earmarked,
as a matter of priority, to the achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals, as well as to the setting in place of agricultural,
industrial and extractive policies ensuring the participation of the
poorest strata of the population in growth. This requires on the part of
our partners full compliance with the principles of good governance. Any
failures to comply with these principles, which have lasted only too
long, must necessarily be sanctioned.
N° 3251 - Rapport déposé par la Délégation pour l'Union européenne sur la négociation des accords de partenariat économique |