Toxic Free Trade

BERLIN/YAOUNDÉ (Own report) - The EU's Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Cameroon, soon to be implemented, will drive this African country deeper into poverty, Yvonne Takang, Executive Secretary of the Cameroonian civic organization ACDIC explained in an interview with german-foreign-policy.com. The Economic Partnership Agreement, ratified under pressure from Brussels last year in a hush-hush operation, will endanger Cameroon's "agriculture and regional integration," warned Takang, and hamper the country's industrialization. She also signaled resistance to the agreement's implementation. Since 2002, the EU has been seeking to conclude EPAs with former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions to open markets for European businesses, create attractive investment opportunities, and secure imports of cheap raw materials. The planned deregulation will leave the weaker national economies in Africa unprotected. A well known example of the negative consequences is the local chicken production in Ghana, which virtually collapsed after this West African country opened its markets to European - including German - poultry exports. German slaughterhouses, on the other hand, benefitted, significantly increasing their chicken exports and profits.

The EPAs

The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) have been on the EU's foreign trade policy agenda since 2002. At the time, Brussels had initiated negotiations with the so-called ACP countries. The 79 ACP nations are mostly poverty-stricken countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific region, particularly former European colonies. The EPAs are free trade agreements aimed primarily at increasing export possibilities for EU businesses, securing attractive investment conditions in these ACP countries and reducing the prices of imports from the ACP region - particularly agrarian products and raw materials for European industry. According to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ), the EPAs are necessary for placing the two sides' trade relations on a basis compatible with WTO standards.[1] However, the EPAs include regulations that far surpass WTO standards. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[2]) They are an element of the EU Commission's "Global Strategy," formulated in 2006, aimed at bringing the European economy to the top in global competition.[3] German organizations such as the Federation of German Industries (BDI) helped formulate this strategy.

Illegal Dumping

The decline of poultry production in several West African nations is a good example of the drastic consequences a comprehensive free trade agreement can have on the unprotected national economies of ACP countries. In today's Ghana, for example, where, at the beginning of the 1990s, poultry consumption could be satisfied mainly with domestic production, the domestic slaughterhouses by 2003 were working at only 25 percent of their capacity workloads. It was reported that Ghana's chicken production had "completely collapsed" [4] in 2011, accompanied with the loss of up to 100,000 jobs. Domestic poultry farmers could no longer compete with the highly subventioned slaughterhouses of EU countries because of insufficient protection through customs duties. Inversely, German slaughterhouses were in a position to greatly expand their exports. In 2000 they had been exporting only 5,000 tons of poultry to African countries. By 2011, they were already exporting 19,000 tons and by 2012 they were selling about 43 million tons of chicken to sub-Saharan countries. Particularly peasant farmers were completely "forced" out of the market by "illegal dumping," criticized the "Bread for the World" protestant relief organization in 2013. "With import prices at around 80 eurocents per kilo," they could "not compete."[5]

Divide and Conquer

Therefore, contrary to the Caribbean, where this sort of agreement was concluded, as planned, on the regional level in 2007 - particularly in African countries there has been resistance to signing the EPAs from the beginning. After a few years of nearly fruitless negotiations with the African states, Brussels began concluding so-called interim EPAs with individual African countries, including Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. This is an element of a "divide and conquer" strategy, wherein standards are agreed upon, which can no longer be nullified in the planned regional EPAs - such as an agreement with the West African Economic Alliance (ECOWAS). The EU began increasing its pressure in 2014, threatening that by October 1, 2014, for all ACP countries "showing no genuine interest" in "signing and ratifying" the EPAs, access to the European market would be made more difficult.[6] As one of the results of this pressure, Cameroon's parliament ratified the agreement - in a hush-hush operation in July 2014, shortly before midnight, in the last parliamentary session before the summer break.[7] The EU is now pressuring Cameroon to induce other Central African nations to follow suit and sign. Among the countries specifically named are Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Resistance

However, even in Cameroon, the resistance to the EPA is still continuing. Since years already, the civic association "Association Citoyenne de Défense des interèts Collectifs" (ACDIC) has been one of the groups opposing this agreement. "It will definitely lead to more poverty," warns Yvonne Takang, ACDIC's Executive Secretary. The EPA will damage Cameroon "in its agriculture and its regional integration;" it will actually force us "to abandon planting the food we, ourselves, can produce" - such as milk, sugar and cooking oil. After a protracted struggle, the importation of EU dumping-price chicken, which had ruined many Ghanaian peasants, could be halted, explains Takang. In the meantime, farmers in Cameroon are again beginning to earn their living with poultry farming. The hope now is to achieve a similar success against the EPAs. After all, it took five years for the government to ratify the agreement. "Now we are fighting to prevent the implementation of the agreement."[8] According to the EU, the agreement should be fully in force by 2023.

No Way Out in Sight

Takang generally agrees that the EU is using EPAs to "maintain Africa as its source of cheap raw materials, while simultaneously impeding the development of industry" in Africa. The opening of the markets is unilaterally beneficial to the rich European countries, warns the ACDIC's Executive Secretary. "Even if the EU would open its markets to us by a thousand percent, we would hardly have any (industrial, gfp.com) products to sell, while the EU would have every possibility to flood our markets."[9] Cameroon's way out of its dependency on the industrialized centers of prosperity in Europe and its poverty would be even more limited than ever, if the EPA were to be implemented.

[1] BMZ Referat 415, Juli 2010.
[2] See Global Europe.
[3] Kommission der Europäischen Gemeinschaft: Mitteilung der Kommission an den Rat, das Europäische Parlament, den Europäischen Wirtschafts- und Sozialausschuss und den Ausschuss der Regionen: Ein wettbewerbsfähiges Europa in einer Globalisierten Welt. Ein Beitrag zur EU-Strategie für Wachstum und Beschäftigung. Brüssel, den 4. Oktober 2006.
[4] Subventioniert Europa weltweiten Hunger? www.dw.de 23.11.2011.
[5] Deutschland steigert Hähnchenausfuhren nach Afrika um 120 Prozent. www.brot-fuer-die-welt.de 29.08.2013. See Mordsgeschäfte (IV).
[6] Evita Schmieg: EU Economic Partnership Agreements in Sub-Saharan Africa. SWP Comments 8, January 2014.
[7], [8], [9] See "Durch EPA wird die Armut in Kamerun wachsen".


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