PAF 285

PAF PROACTIVE FILE Regular News Update from Eurostep
No 286 Friday 20 September 2002

1. EUROPEAN COMMISSION ADOPTS COMMUNICATION ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT – NGOs TO RESPOND

The European Commission this week adopted a Communication on trade and development entitled “Trade and Development: assisting developing countries to benefit from trade”, which had been long promised by EU Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy. According to a press release on the Commission’s website - http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/miti/devel/pr180902.htm - the Communication “sets out the importance of the relationship between development, trade and the integration of developing countries into the world economy”. Commissioner Lamy is quoted as stating – “What we want to establish here is how we can put trade at the service of development”. The full document can be found at http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/pdf/comdev_170902.pdf

The Communication will be discussed at the 30 September meeting of the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council. NGOs will be able to follow a televised debate in the pressroom of the EU Council building, starting at 3PM. The European Commission’s Directorate General for Trade will also organise a discussion on the document during its dialogue meeting with civil society on 2 October. For more details see http://trade-info.cec.eu.int/civil_soc/meeting.php?action=consult

A wide range of NGOs also plan to send responses and comments on the Communication to the Commission and EU Member State officials. For more information contact [email protected]

According to the Commission press release accompanying the Communication, as the Country Strategy Papers and Regional Strategy Papers agreed between the EU and development partner governments are the key vehicles for translating EU policy dialogue into concrete assistance programmes, the Communication stresses the importance of emphasising trade issues at each stage of their preparation and review. “The Commission would work with each country or region to assess what it needs, with the goal of earmarking a sum specifically for trade-related assistance. The funding for trade-related technical assistance would be adjusted as necessary in the mid-term review of the CSP / RSP to be launched in 2003, following discussion with partner countries.”

However at a recent meeting co-organised by the European Commission and Eurostep in July it was revealed that only 0.1% of funding in ACP Country Strategy Papers had been thus explicitly earmarked for trade related technical assistance.

2. LAUNCH OF ACP-EU TRADE NEGOTIATIONS ON 27 SEPTEMBER

The ACP and the EU will launch negotiations on future trade arrangements on 27 September in Brussels at a meeting between EU and ACP ministers. The negotiations, which are supposed to be concluded by the end of 2007, could have fundamental consequences on the economies of ACP countries and the well being of its peoples. The EU is proposing reciprocal free trade based regional trade arrangements to replace the non-reciprocal preferential trade arrangements, which have been a cornerstone of ACP-EU co-operation. An argument used by the EU in its attempt to revise this system is that after more than 25 years of the practise of this preferential trading system, the ACP’s share of the EU market has declined to the benefit of other countries, which have not been involved in the system of preferential trade. However, the changes that are being proposed do not seem to be directed at addressing the ACP’s declining share of the European market. Rather, the changes proposed force ACP countries to open their markets to the EU.
Many civil society organisations believe that EU proposals for reciprocal free trade based regional trade arrangements to replace the current system of non-reciprocal preferential trade arrangements, could be detrimental to the realisation of the overall goal of ACP-EU co-operation agreed by both parties, i.e. poverty eradication.
Eurostep’s view is that the starting point of the negotiations should not be on how to arrive at reciprocal free trade based agreements. Rather, the negotiations should be based on development objectives, trade that effectively addresses poverty eradication, and should advance sustainable development in the ACP as was outlined in the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly Declaration adopted in Cape Town in March 2002. The direction that the negotiations follow should be based on the results of Sustainable Impact Assessments carried out by the ACP and the EU that examine the potential effect of trade arrangements on men, women and the environment in the ACP.
The launch of the negotiations will include an opening ceremony open to the public and journalists from 11:00 am to 12:00 noon in the pressroom of the EU Council building in Brussels. The Commission’s Directorate General for Trade will also organise a discussion on the negotiations during its dialogue meeting with civil society on 2 October. For more details see http://trade-info.cec.eu.int/civil_soc/meeting.php?action=consult

3. BRITISH NGDO PLATFORM CRITICISE EU POLICY ON ASIA IN ADVANCE OF ASIA EUROPE MEETING (ASEM) SUMMIT

British NGDO Platform – BOND – has released a paper criticising the EU for allocating just 7% of its aid to Asia between 1988 and 1999 in advance of this weekend’s Asia-Europe (ASEM) Summit. In an article published in the European Voice the BOND paper is cited as pointing outing out that Turkey gets twice as much aid from the EU as Bangladesh. BOND spokesperson, Belen Vasquez describes EU aid as not well targetted, not reaching the poor and lacking coherence. The paper contends that EU aid to Asia has been driven by politics. Following the 11 September atrocities the EU decided to unfreeze aid to Pakistan (frozen after the 1999 military coup) and grant Pakistan € 165 million for its 5 year country strategy plan. Some 15% of aid funds earmarked for funds in other Asian countries have been diverted to Afghanistan in 2002.
The 4th ASEM Summit taking place in Copenhagen will focus on the problem of terrorism and Iraq. The countries in South Asia, which is the continent’s poorest region, do not belong to the ASEM process. Civil society organisations will host an alternative summit in Copenhagen at the same time as the official Summit. This event will call on the EU to be more generous towards Asia, the continent with the largest grouping of people living in absolute poverty.

4. IN BRIEF

Cuban Minister Ricardo Cabrissa will be meeting with EU Development and Trade Commissioners, Poul Nielson and Pascal Lamy, and EU Foreign Policy High Representative Javier Solana to discuss EU co-operation with Cuba. Cuba, which is not a signatory to the Cotonou Agreement but is an ACP member, will also attend the launch of the ACP-EU negotiations as a special guest. However, Cuba has not changed its mind about acceding to the Cotonou Agreement. A recent statement from the Cuban Governments states: “Cuba accepts the conditions of the Agreement. On the other hand, we cannot accept the additional conditions to those of the text .. There is no question of us going back to a colonial situation.”

The European Commission has announced a contribution of € 60 million to lighten the debts of the most indebted ACP countries. This is additional to the cancellation of debts worth € 360 million debts from least developed countries.

The President of the European Parliament Pat Cox has attacked EU Development Commissioner Poul Nielson for failing to provide information to the Parliament’s delegation during the recent UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. The Parliament’s Green Group had also lodged similar complaints against both Mr Nielson and EU Commissioner for the Environment, Margot Wallström. Both Wallström and Nielson have denied any such behaviour.