West Africa on cusp of EU trade deal
West Africa on cusp of EU trade deal
EU says west African leaders have agreed to a trade deal after a decade of negotiations.
The leaders of west Africa’s 16-country trading bloc have agreed to sign an economic partnership agreement with the European Union, the European Commission says.
The announcement comes after months of wavering by the region’s largest economy, Nigeria, and two and a half months before a deadline set by the EU. If no deal had been in place before 1 October, the region’s wealthiest countries – Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire – would have lost some of their existing trade privileges from the EU.
The west African leaders have yet to put pen to paper, and hopes have been raised and dashed before. Negotiators settled their differences in February and the EU had hoped that the political leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) countries would sign the agreement before an EU-Africa summit held in Brussels on 2-3 April.
At the last minute, however, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan decided not to go ahead with the deal. In March, the Nigerians presented statistics suggesting that Nigeria would be better off without an EPA, an argument to which Ecowas responded by launching a country study.
Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for trade, nonetheless felt confident enough to issue a statement welcoming the political breakthrough and hailing the economic partnership agreement (EPA) as “a foundation of long-term growth and future prosperity in a region that is so close to Europe”.
De Gucht also stressed “the need to implement this deal as soon as possible”.
An EU member-state diplomat said that, in practice, the 1 October deadline obliged Ecowas to accept an EPA by Tuesday (15 July), because of the EU’s internal procedures.
Others suggest, however, that the long and difficult history of the deal and its potential boost to other pending trade deals make it unlikely that internal processes would be allowed to scupper an agreement.
When signed, this will be the first EPA – a new generation of more ambitious trade deals – that the EU has signed with an African region.
The EU still entertains hopes of agreeing EPAs with a bloc of six southern African states and the five members of the East African Community.
The EU has been negotiating regional and bilateral EPAs in Africa for a decade, with only fragmentary progress. Only a small set of African countries have signed a bilateral deal with the EU or reached interim arrangements.
Individual countries’ interest in an agreement with the EU has varied in part based on their income. The EU has decided to extend its generic system of trade privileges – its ‘generalised system of preferences’ – to all countries with which it does not have a fully fledged agreement, such as an EPA. Most African countries would not be affected by such a shift, but richer African states would lose some of their traditional advantages. That prospect encouraged Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to reach bilateral interim EPAs with the EU, but they had not ratified the interim deals or completed full bilateral deals by the time the prospects for a region-wide deal were revived last year, thanks largely to Nigerian interest.
As well as setting terms for the liberalisation of trade in foods and other goods, the EPAs ease trade in some services and contain chapters on investment, enforcement and trade-related aid.
The EU will accompany the EPA with west Africa with funding intended to help develop trade-related systems and infrastructure.