European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Sunday urged the African countries to sign the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU).
In a declaration during the second EU-Africa summit being held here from Saturday, Barroso said it is indispensable to safeguard trade flows and preferences between the EU and African countries since the current trade regime of the Cotonou Agreement expires on Jan. 1, 2008.
"Our objective has always been and remains to conclude economic partnership agreements which aim at strengthening regional integration and bring genuine development to African countries," he said.
Obviously, this is difficult as it implies change, Barroso said, adding that it is a challenge for both African and Europeans and will require time.
"Europe is committed to continuing negotiations next year to achieve this objective," he said. "We are about to conclude interim agreements with the most concerned countries."
According to Barroso, the non-LDCs (less developed countries) would pay an incredibly high price caused by trade disruption if no interim agreements were to be concluded.
Cote d'lvoire, for example, would lose about 700 million euros (1.02 billion U.S. dollars) of trade in goods if it had not signed such an interim agreements, he said.
Tensions over trade talks between the EU and Africa are believed to overshadow the EU-Africa summit. The EU said it sees more trade with Europe as the best way to end decades of poverty in Africa.
But African leaders, including Chairman of the African Union Commission Alpha Oumar Konare, argued that speeding trade negotiation on EPAs will have "no benefit" for Africa.
So far only a handful of African countries in eastern and southern Africa have agreed to sign a framework agreement towards the EPAs while bigger economies such as South Africa and Nigeria have refused to do so.
The agreement, which will replace the Cotonou trade arrangement that lapses at the end of this year, is a first step towards EPAs which the EU said will help development but critics said would expose the continent to too much competition.
"We are as concerned as you that we have not always been able to conclude interim agreements at regional level and that we have had to conclude in some cases with individual countries," Barroso said. "The urgency remains to secure that no one should be worse off."
He emphasized that these interim agreements are not EPAs but instruments to prevent any African country from being worse off as of Jan. 1, 2008.
"Once we have secured this, we will have time to assess the situation calmly and discuss together what next," Barroso said. "We will then have ample time to discuss more in depth the issues relating to the strengths and weaknesses of regional integration of African development."
Barroso proposed to pursue these exchanges of views at the highest political level with each region taking into account specific needs, and economic realities.
Source:Xinhua
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