November 22: Speech on Economic Partnership Agreements given to the EU-ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Barbados

I welcome this opportunity to discuss EPAs at this JPA.

It is important that we keep attention on EPA negotiations and maintain pressure on negotiators to deliver agreements that deliver real development benefits and help foster the change that will boost ACP competitiveness in the future.

The debate and resolution is particularly pertinent with regard to the ongoing “detailed and comprehensive” review that I fear is in danger of becoming a missed opportunity. The Commission recognises that if the ACP don’t buy in to EPAs they are never going to be successfully implemented.

However, this realisation does not seem to be matched by an equal will to ensure that all stakeholders, including parliamentarians, are involved in the Review.

EPA negotiations have been characterised by a lack of trust of the Commission’s true intentions and fear of the effects of their proposals. EPAs are a partnership with a credibility problem desperately in need of a forum which would help make them more democratic and accountable. The JPA is a forum in search of a purpose. As EPA negotiations continue, and in the implementation phase, the JPA must be more closely involved in what is happening because if it is not this house which provides parliamentary oversight to unelected regional groups then who?

If the JPA wants to be taken seriously on EPAs they can’t be allowed to slip off the Standing Committee’s agenda as happened on Saturday and has happened before in Brussels. It is not good enough, meetings must start on time and EPAs shouldn’t be the last point on the agenda.

Time is running out and so people talk about extending the deadline. Yes the ACP’s development should not be harmed should the deadline be missed but this is only possible at the WTO if the deadline is missed because negotiations are nearing completion and there is a clear timeframe for conclusion. As Doha showed missing a deadline won’t help anyone if there is not an increased efforts to conclude talks. Without a deadline impetus for moving forward with negotiations is lost. This impetus is needed when difficult political decisions are at stake both on the ACP side and for the EU, as the embarrassing failure to respond to SADC’s March proposal demonstrates.

There were calls for our resolution on EPAs to demand that EPAs need not be concluded until 3 years after the conclusion of the Doha Round. This type of proposal is ridiculous. It does not advance the ACP’s development to propose measures in this house that are impossible due to commitments ACP and EU countries have already made at the WTO. Debates on EPAs are problematic enough without fanciful digressions. If the JPA is serious about wanting to be heard it must be constructive and helpful.

I was disappointed we were not able to get more specific content in our resolution. Simplified, liberalised Rules of Origin; Duty-Free, Quota-Free market access; simple and workable safeguard measures for the ACP: these are measures that need greater attention but were excluded from a compromise text that was hurriedly put together. In future I would like to propose that preliminary internal MEP meetings are held before conciliations at the JPA.

The EPP-ED has not put down any amendments because we would rather stick to a compromise text that we have problems with but can support than have the resolution further diluted with amendments.

The time has come for everyone involved to become more specific in what they are asking for. I still believe that EPAs can offer ACP countries a tremendous opportunity. ACP colleagues need to tell us what level, and for what, they need additional EPA-related funds. In order for us in the EU to lobby the Commission and our Governments to deliver for the ACP on EPAs we must know precisely what we are asking them to do.

We cannot back vague, uncosted demands for “EPA support for Development”. We are accountable to taxpayers. Aid budgets are increasing rapidly and these increases will be impossible to sustain without high levels of accountability.

From our side we need the Commission and Member States to stop recycling aid and announcing Aid for Trade money again and again. It is only by making it clear that new money is being provided, and working with the ACP to establish how best to deliver this, that the mistrust that has characterised negotiations, will be overcome.

This isn’t just about getting more and more money for the ACP. Many of us have serious concerns about the capacity of many ACP countries and regions to implement agreements of the complexity and ambition that the Commission proposes. This doesn’t mean EPAs shouldn’t be ambitious. Nor should it be used as an argument for indefinite protectionism. It just means we have to get the sequencing and pacing right. We have to be realistic. Missing deadlines cannot be allowed to be accompanied by continued deadlock. There’s a balance to be achieved and only by getting it right will we have a genuine partnership agreement.