We believe that  EU-ACP co-operation should be based on  an  approach which 

• supports sustainable development in ACP countries and implementation of human, economic, social, environmental, cultural and civil rights;
• Is based on the principle of non reciprocity and of special and differentiated treatment of the least developed countries;
• recognises the rights of ACP producers to protect their own local and regional markets in trade, as they themselves and their governments deem appropriate;
• recognises and supports ACP countries’ right to food sovereignty, safeguards and protects their rights  of access to the necessary political arenas, where they can formulate and pursue their own development strategies.

While presenting the EPAs as “instruments for development”, the EU is driving at turning them into thorough and far-reaching free trade agreements. The EU proposals would not only result in the extinction of practically all customs duties on property and goods, but  also  in the inclusion of services, investment and public procurement and the enforcement of rules on competition, intellectual property, data protection, trade facilities, etc. in the liberalisation process.

Such agreements would open up ACP markets to competition from European exports on unequal terms, they would undermine regional integration efforts, destroy emerging industries, family farming, jobs and living conditions. They would seriously reduce the political possibilities for ACP countries to work out and regulate their own policy in accordance with their needs and their development objectives. Economic Partnership Agreements would lead to deeper social inequality and poverty.

With the official deadline of December 31st 2007 coming up, the EU is exerting enormous pressure on ACP countries to sign the agreements by the end of this year, holding forth the threat of cuts in development aid and increased customs duties on imports.

We condemn the use of such bullying tactics against some of the world’s poorest countries and the insistence on reciprocity in trade relations between countries of such wide inequality in economic capacity.

1

We, the civil society organisations of Burkina Faso,  and hence of the ECOWAS, express our concern over the lack of clarity in the ECOWAS position. We fail to understand why it negotiates in secret. According to the Cotonou agreements, non-State parties concerned (Acteurs Non Etatiques in French, abbr. ANE ! –  in long-hand meaning donkey *) should also be associated with the talks, but instead everything takes place secretly, both as regards the EU and the CEDEAO. We demand to be kept informed of the state of negotiations on a day by day basis.

2

Even more serious is the incomprehensible length of time the EOCWAS takes in reforming the CET, the Common External Customs Tariff, which regulates import duties).

The sharp price increases of imported rice, wheat, milk powder and vegetable oil on the world market clearly show that the CET set by the West African Economic and Monetary Union is much too low. It has therefore not been possible to develop the domestic rice or milk production, to cite only two sectors of the economy. We have every freedom to add an extra tariff band (an additional tax on the imports of certain products) of 50% or why not 100%? However, if we sign an EPA with the EU, we will no longer be able to adjust the CET upwards and we will not have the right to tax any imports at more than 20%, a rate which is  insignificant, because it does not even protect us from the fluctuations of the dollar, not to mention other world market movements.

The establishment of a list of special products (which will be exempted from the liberalisation in an EPA with the EU) is of capital importance. Such a list has to be worked out in transparency (in a dialogue with the civil society). It can not be packaged and tied up in a couple of days only to bow to the wish of Mr Peter Mandelson, Chief EU negotiator, aiming at a closure of negotiations before December 2007. The list is, on the other hand, linked to another one, the “sensitive products” list presently being negotiated at the WTO. The normal procedure would be to head for as large a list as possible of sensitive products at the WTO, and then to add the one on “special products”, that is to say products to exclude from liberalisation within an EPA. Therefore nothing would justify the signing of an EPA before the WTO Doha Round is concluded.

3

It is a recognised principle at WTO level, that an agreement between a great power, such as the European Union, and one of the poorest regional communities of the world, i.e. the ECOWAS, can be asymmetric. This means that even if Europe opens up its markets to 100%, the ECOWAS could chose to go up to only 50 or 60%. The WTO does not set a rate for liberalisation. The ECOWAS should not go into talks based on the European position, but take its own requirements as a starting point. A rate of 50% would be more respectful of the interests of West Africa and is all together justifiable at the WTO and therefore also at the EU, which continuously points to WTO rules while pushing the ACPs toward a virtually full-blown liberalisation. ROPPA, the Network of Farmers’ and Producer’s Organisations, has developed a good set of arguments in support of this.

4

It can therefore easily be seen that the deadline proposed by the EU (December 2007) is totally unrealistic. Moreover, it can not in any way be justified. The Doha Round was to have been completed in 2004. Since the EPAs are bound by WTO rules, let us await  the end of the Doha talks before concluding an EPA. Let us carry on with the negotiations on sensitive products at the WTO and let us remind our counterparts of the reasons that underpin trade preference systems. And especially, let us take the time to negotiate an EPA that would benefit both sides, with special reference to the development of West Africa and the fight against poverty, as foreseen by the Cotonou Agreement.

 5

The National Assembly will be called upon to ratify an EPA once the ECOWAS Heads of State have given their approval. It is therefore hard to understand why the Assembly appears to take no interest in the negotiations preparing such an agreement. As for us, the civil society organisations and signatories of the present document, we demand that a debate on the EPAs be scheduled without delay at the National Assembly and that it be extended by all the media to the entire country.

On June 11th this year, Prime Minister Tertius Zongo said, in reply to a question put to him: “To go straight into an EPA is not the solution.” We fully share this position. In order to dissipate our apprehension, we have every wish to send a delegation of the signatories of this document to represent us in a meeting with the Prime Minister within the next few days.

Ouagadougou, 27 September 2007

The undersigned

CPF La Confédération Paysanne du Faso

RECIF-NGO

INADES-Formation

ORCADE

AJAD (Youth and Development)

ROPPA (Network of Farmers and Producer Organisations of West Africa)

SEDELAN (Publishing Office for Official Local Languages of Burkina)

SPONG (The Permanent Secretariat of Non Governmental Organisations)

LBC (Burkina Consumer Association)