SADC ministers lobby EU on EPA deadline
Mbongeni Mguni | Tuesday April 1, 2014 11:12
In October, the European Union will expire a seven-year old market access directive under which 36 African Caribbean and Pacific states, including Botswana and other SADC countries, will lose the duty and quota free access to the EU market they are currently enjoying.
Loss of this favourable access means key local exports to the EU, such as beef, will face intense competition from daunting and more developed rivals such as Brazil, resulting in the possible collapse of the local beef value chain.
Yesterday, Makgato-Malesu told Mmegi Business that the decision to lobby the EU-Africa Summit was taken during a SADC ministers meeting in Johannesburg last Friday.
“We resolved to attend the Summit and effectively lobby as the ministers of trade in SADC, to a head of state and political level, what these talks mean for us and to lobby for the deadline that is looming,” she said ahead of her departure.
“We will speak about the implications it has for our economies. The idea is for us to effectively lobby and put weight and measure on the subject so that they take our sensitivities into consideration.”
SADC ministers are hoping to influence the economic agenda at the Summit, which begins on Wednesday, and secure deadline extensions and favourable terms on the ongoing Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) trade talks.
Makgato-Malesu and her regional peers hope to use the presence of heads of state and government to influence the direction trade talks are going as well as the deadline.
The SADC ministers are hoping to see their efforts reflected in the communiqué released at the end of a two-day Summit, with the changes relieving pressure on the outstanding items in the trade talks towards a comprehensive EPA.
“Our senior officials are meeting, separately from the Summit, in Brussels in EPA negotiations and we are hoping they make progress on the three remaining key issues,” Makgato-Malesu told Mmegi Business.
“The senior officials were going anyway and we met them in Johannesburg to give them guidance and instruction, which is when we decided to also attend.”
According to the minister, the three outstanding issues are export taxes, agricultural safeguards and rules of origin. Export taxes relate to the level of taxation on the export of raw commodities, while agricultural safeguards include the touchy subject of subsidies.Botswana and other SADC states have been negotiating a new trade deal with the EU for 13 years, missing the first deadline of December 2007 set by the World Trade Organisation.
SADC and the EU also missed another December 2010 deadline for the resolution of the complex, political and economically sensitive talks. Last year the region set itself and subsequently missed a June 2013 deadline to conclude a final EPA. Last July, EU trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht visited Botswana where he announced that trade talks were 95 percent done and would be wrapped up “in months”.
Makgato-Malesu explained that finalising the talks was a laborious, complex and sensitive task.
“This is a very protracted negotiating process that is very complex because you have various countries at different levels of development with different needs and priorities,” she said.
“You have the developed economies, the vulnerable, those dependent on a single commodity and others too.”
Throughout his tour of Kenya, South Africa, Namibia and Botswana last year, De Gucht repeatedly reminded trade authorities of the EU’s importance to their economies as well as the October expiry of the market access directive.