Aspects of a Future Cooperation Agreement between the EU and the ACP States

From April 23rd to 25th, 1999, the international conference "Farewell to Lomé?" was held in Königswinter (near Bonn/ Germany). It was jointly organised by terre des hommes Germany (tdh), Koordination Southern Africa (KOSA), and World Economy, Ecology and Development (WEED), in cooperation with the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation and the European Network for Information and Action on Southern Africa (ENIASA). 140 representatives of NGOs and research institutions from 15 countries in Europe, Africa, and Latin America discussed the future of the EU's cooperation with ACP states, and in particular the consequences of regional free trade agreements for that cooperation.

Within the present negotiations between the EU and the ACP countries about a future Lomé-convention the EU proposal for Regional Economic Partnership Agreements (REPAs) is a central issue. The Königswinter conference rejected these REPAs and warned against their aggravating negative consequences; because the conference concluded that they would disproportionally favour the EU in gaining a higher market share in ACP regions and countries, without ACP countries on their part being able to earn higher export incomes. The EU does not plan to open its industrial, agricultural and services areas which are sensitive to external competition wider than currently practised. Moreover, the existing experiences with liberalisation in trade and investment between unequal partners so far have shown that it is usually people living in poverty, the small farmers and the local economies in developing countries that suffer serious disadvantages.

Instead of saying good-bye to the existing Lomé model of non-reciprocal trade preferences the EU should support a cooperation agreement with the ACP countries which takes into account the structural and economic differences of those countries and which subordinates the European economic and agricultural interests to the goal of a world-wide, environmentally sound and socially just development.