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Stand firm
against EPA, says civil society to government
Accra, Dec. 10, Ghanadot/GNA - Civil society organisatons
working on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in Ghana
on Monday called on government to stand by its position not
to sign the interim partnership agreements even in the face
of European Commission's pressure.
They said this was important to avoid the dangerous
implications of the so-called interim EPA.
The EPAs will replace the current Cotonou Agreement under
which the Africa, Carribean and Pacific Countries (ACP) have
enjoyed duty and quota free access to the EU market.
Under the proposed deal, ACP countries will be required to
open up their markets for about 80 per cent of products from
the EU in order to continue to enjoy the duty and quota free
access to the EU market.
"We are encouraged that the government decided that it was
not in the interest of Ghana to sign Interim Agreement
proposed by the European Commission, "Dr Yao Graham,
Coordinator of the Third World Network, told a press
conference organised by the civil society organisations
under the umbrella of the Economic Justice Network.
The European Commission and the Ghanaian Government were
locked up in discussions last week in an attempt to get the
latter sign on to the interim agreement.
But the discussions were deadlocked because EC included in
its proposal issues on the liberalisation of government
procurement, investment rules and capital flows.
"These issues are not in any way related to trade in goods
between the EU and Ghana (and other West African countries)
and rules on them are not required by the WTO for the
purposes of continued duty-free access to the EU markets",
Dr. Graham, said.
According to Dr. Graham, even in the area of trade in goods,
the EC included in the interim agreement demands, which had
not been part of the EPA negotiations.
One such demand was for the government to forever eliminate
the use of export taxes, which governments all over the
developing world including Ghana, use when necessary to
discourage the excessive export of locally produced
materials in their raw form, so as to encourage value added
processing and export.
While government's refusal to accept such terms are
encouraging, civil society organisations caution that the
EC's pressure over the deal has not gone away, especially
now that the Cote d'Ivoire has signalled 'initial
intentions' to sign.
Dr Graham said civil society organisations appreciated the
legitimate fears of mainly horticultural exporters, who had
so far added to the pressure to sign the EPA-lite.
"But we believe that the needs of this group can be met
without endangering all the other vital and wide sectors of
domestic producers and exporters, not to talk of other
producers and socio-economic stakeholders," he said.
The civil society groups therefore called on government to
table immediately the GSP+, which would cover about 97 per
cent of the country's exports.
GNA
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