The European Union has been pushing for free trade with Africa for decades. Its latest instrument is economic partnership agreements (epas). These agreements allow African, Caribbean and Pacific (acp) nations unrestricted access to European markets. In return, these nations have to gradually open up their markets to the EU until the EU can export goods to the nations mostly free of tariffs and quotas.

The EU says “epas are aimed at promoting sustainable development and growth, poverty reduction, better governance and the gradual integration of acp countries into the world economy.”

Some experts, however, disagree. Thomas Deve, a policy analyst with the United Nations Development Program, warns that the epas stand in the way of all of the UN’s goals for the development of the region.

“epas are being imposed by Europe on its former colonial territories in the acp,” he says. “The agreements will join these regions’ economies in a free-trade area with Europe and give European big business a monopoly, which is in itself anti-development.”

“We must fight to reverse this, and prevent our further journey on this one-way street to disaster,” he says.

Many experts, like Deve, argue that free trade with Europe will kill Africa’s industry and agriculture. These developing and low-tech nations will not be able to compete with Europe.

“Cheap and often subsidized European products will flood our market, displacing domestic products and deepening the crisis faced by domestic producers, leading to further loss of jobs and livelihoods,” wrote Mohau Pheko in the South African Sunday Times (Dec. 16, 2007).

“Trade, under the right conditions, can lift millions out of poverty. But these deals threaten to undermine poverty reduction by locking in fundamental changes to acp countries’ trade policy,” says Deborah Scott of the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development. “This will undermine future economic growth and deprive poor countries of the space they need to choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment.”

Left With No Choice

If these trade agreements are bad, why don’t African nations simply refuse to sign them?

Because the EU is bullying them and bribing them to sign.

Richer African nations are told that unless they sign an epa by a certain date, they will lose their free access to European markets.

Yash Tandon, co-founder of the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute, states that Europe uses “carrot and stick” bargaining—threatening to cut off aid or impose sanctions if nations don’t sign.

On June 12, the EU announced it would give Kenya about €500 million (us$602 million) to supplement its 2010/11 budget—a 25 percent increase over the previous year. Tandon said it is a motivator toward the signing of an epa. “All these countries are highly dependent on aid. Europe is going to leverage that,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s chief epa negotiator, Tedious Chifamba, claims that he was told that if he didn’t sign an interim epa his country would not receive money to complete a dam it was building.

Divide and Conquer

The EU can effectively lock a nation into an epa even if it does not sign. It encouraged African nations to break up into different regions, for the purpose of negotiation. Many of these areas have formed free-trade zones.

Europe tries to negotiate an epa with the whole zone at once. But if that fails—like it did with the Southern African Development Community (sadc)—the EU will negotiate with individual members.

The EU persuaded several members of the Southern African Customs Union—a subset of sadc nations—to sign epas. Other nations in the customs union, like South Africa, did not. But if the EU has free trade with Botswana, and Botswana has free trade with South Africa, then the EU effectively has a free-trade agreement with South Africa. South Africa would have to dismantle its own customs union to stop it.

But are these epas really a bad thing? Malawian President Bingu Wa Mutharika once asked, “If epas are good, why are we being forced to sign?”

One of the most contentious issues relating to the epas is the “most favored nation” clause. This clause states that if the African nation signs a trade agreement with China, for example, giving China better terms than the EU has, then Europe must get exactly the same deal. The clause applies to an agreement signed with any nation that has more than 1.5 percent of global trade.

Summarizing part of a speech by Thomas Deve, the Inter Press Service writes, “He argued that epas will give Europe power over economic policies to govern the acp region and turn its governments into mere local managers of European corporate interests and profits.”

The EU has the largest export subsidies on agricultural goods in the world. Depending on the final text of the epas, some worry that these subsidies will remain—opening Africa up to be flooded by cheap European food. This may seem like a good thing for a country often hit by starvation. However, it would put local farmers out of business, and leave Africa completely dependent upon Europe for food.

A 2008 declaration written by civil society organizations meeting at the African Trade Network in South Africa reflecting on 2007 stated:

Europe capitalized on the fact that, for historical reasons, a few export sectors in Africa are largely dependent on the European market. By threatening to close access to these markets and throw export sectors into chaos, Europe rode roughshod over the regional negotiating processes and instigated bilateral deals with individual countries.The more vulnerable African governments were forced to concede to Europe’s demand for “interim” trade deals, and in the process, completely undermined regional negotiating positions.These interim economic partnership agreements reveal Europe’s true face. The deals are classical free-trade agreements that clearly serve Europe’s commercial and geo-economic interests. All the claims about supporting Africa’s development and regional integration have been exposed as false. …These provisions only serve to lock in further these countries into Europe’s agenda, and prevent them from exploring other options and relations within the changing global order. This will take away their space for autonomous policy to create jobs, secure livelihoods and pursue equitable economic development and regional integration. …In addition, Europe is exerting high levels of pressure on African governments to expand the negotiations to open up the services sector and to include binding rules on investment, competition policy, and government procurement.Such rules will take away the right of African governments to manage investment and investors in ways that serve Africa’s own development. The inclusion of such issues is not necessary at the multilateral level and against the expressed wishes and declarations of Africa’s governments and peoples.Today it is clear more than ever, that the epas are Europe’s means of locking in the fundamentally unequal relationships between Africa and Europe. Viewed from Africa, this is nothing less than re-colonization.

Of course, the EU has a radically different opinion of these agreements. Whether the epas are a sinister plot, or a genuine attempt to help, albeit with some flaws, one thing is certain. Europe is very interested in making trade deals and extending its influence with Africa.

Europe sees Africa as a vast source of resources that it needs. Historically it has competed for these resources. The epas are a means to that same end. For more information on Africa’s history and future in this area, see our article “Germany’s Plan to Control Africa.”