By Emma Kakololo
WINDHOEK
The South African Government supports calls to extend the negotiating time frame for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) in 2008.
South Africa said many countries have not reached agreement and even those that have concluded interim arrangements have indicated concern over the emerging outcome.
The EU is pressing the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of former colonies to agree to Economic Partnership Agreements by December 31, when the EU’s decades-old preferential trade deals for those countries must be brought into line with World Trade Organisation rules.
South Africa is one of the countries that did not initial the Interim EPA with the EU.
Although South Africa was under no legal obligation, it agreed in 2004 to participation in the Southern African Development Community-EU (SADC-EU) EPA negotiations in an effort to strengthen the prospects for regional integration in Southern Africa.
“We had hoped that, by forging a unified regional approach among the SADC EPA States to the negotiations with an important trade partner, we would strengthen trade relations within the region as well as the region’s trade relations with the EU,” South African Minister of Trade and Industry Mandisi Mpahlwa said in a statement.
“Government supports the view that the negotiating time frame for the EPA be extended in 2008 to give time to reach a balanced and fair developmental outcome.”
Despite acknowledging that there were serious issues that needed to be addressed in a “positive manner”, Mpahlwa also did not rule out the possibility of reaching a comprehensive deal.
“South Africa endorses this approach and believes that a developmental outcome for the EPA that promotes regional integration is not out of reach if all parties accept the shortcomings of the emerging agreements, and agree to fully address them before finalising the outcome.”
All SADC EPA States, except South African and Namibia, said the Minister, are obliged to negotiate services and investment over a four-year period, with the prospect that future negotiations will include government procurement and competition.
The obligations to negotiate these issues, he added, create a new generation of trade policy divisions in the region and foreclose the option of building regional markets and rules in Southern Africa.
“Over and above these difficulties, the EC submitted a range of additional and onerous demands on the SADC EPA States in the last negotiating sessions.”