WINDHOEK
The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) on Thursday dismissed fears that a division between its members over the negotiation of economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU) has plunked the union into mayhem.
Bloomberg recently reported that the world’s oldest customs union was thrown into a crisis due to a split by its members over the EPA negotiations.
In addition, it said, divisions between South Africa (SA) and its neighbours raised some very serious questions about SACU’s effective operations.
But of greater concern, it said, was the future continuation of SACU as a coherent entity. The divided actions by the SACU member states “clearly breach the substance of the SACU treaty”.
Article 31 of the 2002 SACU Agreement prohibits member states from entering into new trade pacts, or amending existing agreements, without the consent of other member states.
“The SADC-EU EPA negotiations have not thrown SACU into calamity,” SACU Communications Manager Shungu Malikongwa said Thursday.
When asked if the interim trade deals between the EU and SADC, to which all SACU member states also subscribe, could undermine regional integration and jeopardize future prosperity, she said: “The SACU Council of Ministers are looking into the preliminary outcome of the negotiations and how best to deal with the implications thereof.”
“At this stage we do not see SACU breaking apart due to SADC-EU EPA negotiations.”
Three out of the five SACU members (Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) have so far initialled the SADC-EU EPA. But this number now adds up to four with Namibia finally signing the Interim EPA (IEPA) last week.
Namibia at the outset as well as SA refused to sign, arguing that the EU’s demands were too burdensome. The two countries argued that the accord in present form would pre-empt Southern African Development Community (SADC) EPA countries’ negotiating space as EPA-plus preferential treatment would be accorded to the EU without any further concession from the EU side.
Namibia in particular was against the EC’s continued insistence on a clause for SADC EPA states to immediately freeze any new measures concerning the use of export taxes or levies; its non-acceptance of the SADC EPA’s proposal for infant industry protection, based on the current Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and SADC Trade Protocol provisions; and the EC insisting on a non-negotiable demand for a provision to ensure free movement of goods within the eight SADC EPA states.